Bug: M92 - Annotations in PDF disappearing!

[Defenderland]

The reading is getting cumbersome and disappointing for me.
I have a small PDF with a dozen pages and if i mark text of half a page or a full page the annotation is not even remembered.

[Booxtor]

Originally Posted by Defenderland

The reading is getting cumbersome and disappointing for me.
I have a small PDF with a dozen pages and if i mark text of half a page or a full page the annotation is not even remembered.

Hmmm..
Does that problem appear in every PDF or just in a particular one?
(I couldn't reproduce the problem with my PDF documents - annotation worked just fine)

[Defenderland]

I use annotations rarely, but when i use them i really need them. Therefore i can't say, if it would happen often. But i will test it.

[janek]

Originally Posted by Defenderland

I use annotations rarely, but when i use them i really need them. Therefore i can't say, if it would happen often. But i will test it.

My impression is annotations are only saved when you flip the page. So making an annotation and closing the reader without going to the next page first cancels the annotation. They are also not saved on scanned pdfs.

[Valec]

I noticed several times that annotations are sometimes lost. It seemed like it was related to immediately closing the file after making an annotation, but I never paid attention to that. In any case, disappearing scribbles is a serious bug and should be high on the list of things to fix.

[kodomo]

Originally Posted by Valec

I noticed several times that annotations are sometimes lost. It seemed like it was related to immediately closing the file after making an annotation, but I never paid attention to that. In any case, disappearing scribbles is a serious bug and should be high on the list of things to fix.

I second that - I recently lost 3 pages of scribble notes of lectures (about 3h of work :-| ).

It seems to me like the device were indeed saving scribbles on page flips if the document itself already exists.
In above mentioned case, it was a new file - and when the device crashed (after a couple of page flips), the file was _not_ saved.

Unfortunately, my device is currently broken
(updated to newest firmware 2 days ago -> worked -> several hard crashes -> after the last crash, the device decided only to update the screen towards black (not towards white anymore) -> by now, the screen's entirely black)
...which brings me to another important point: _PLEASE_ get the scribble notes _out_ of the /root directory onto SDCard - or at least into an exported directory!
Fortunately, I remembered the position of icons and was able to disable the root password, enable the serial console, and save my data... but... well

btw.: Did anybody else have such a problem with the new firmware? I wonder whether it's a hard- or a software issue (guessing: hardware - since I was able to flash the previous firmware again without changing the problem - the device runs fine, but the display remains black :-( )

[OwenA]

Does anyone know the current situation on the disappearing scribbles problem?

I am a lecturer and my University has provided me with a M92 so that I can research the potential of using it as an assessment / marking tool, with a view to publishing my findings on it's suitability for this next year. In order to persuade the world of academia that this is a viable tool I need to persuade them that it can serve a similar function as a piece of paper, for non-technically minded academics, so a working scribble function is essential to this. Being able to merge the scribbles, and export the merged document plus scribbles back to a PC is also essential. And, being able to rename the document on the M92 without loosing the scribbles is important, which I gather you can only do if the the scribbles are merged. If you change the name without saving them they seem to disappear.

The problem I am having is that sometimes, when I merge my marking scribbles, the scribbles on the first page don't get saved in the new merged document (they still appear on the original file, but this isn't a merged file). If I change the name of the merged document, go back in and re-write the first page of scribbles, and merge again, this usually does the trick and they merge okay. But this is going to be too much of a faff for me to be able to recommend the M92 to the world of academia. This is happening in about 1 in 4 documents.

I have read through the above posts, and I apologise that I am probably going over old territory here, but most of the posts above went over my head somewhat. As this thread is getting on for a year old now I was hoping that the problem might have been fixed and that there might be something I can download that fixes it?

I'm afraid I haven't even worked out how to update yet as the instruction manual is gloriously vague.

Any information on this would be very gratefully received.

[OwenA]

Does anyone know the current situation on the disappearing scribbles problem?

I am a lecturer and my University has provided me with a M92 so that I can research the potential of using it as an assessment / marking tool, with a view to publishing my findings on it's suitability for this next year. In order to persuade the world of academia that this is a viable tool I need to persuade them that it can serve a similar function as a piece of paper, for non-technically minded academics, so a working scribble function is essential to this. Being able to merge the scribbles, and export the merged document plus scribbles back to a PC is also essential. And, being able to rename the document on the M92 without loosing the scribbles is important, which I gather you can only do if the the scribbles are merged. If you change the name without saving them they seem to disappear.

The problem I am having is that sometimes, when I merge my marking scribbles, the scribbles on the first page don't get saved in the new merged document (they still appear on the original file, but this isn't a merged file). If I change the name of the merged document, go back in and re-write the first page of scribbles, and merge again, this usually does the trick and they merge okay. But this is going to be too much of a faff for me to be able to recommend the M92 to the world of academia. This is happening in about 1 in 4 documents.

I have read through the above posts, and I apologise that I am probably going over old territory here, but most of the posts above went over my head somewhat. As this thread is getting on for a year old now I was hoping that the problem might have been fixed and that there might be something I can download that fixes it?

I'm afraid I haven't even worked out how to update yet as the instruction manual is gloriously vague.

Any information on this would be very gratefully received.

[por]

It was never possible to merge straight vertical or horizontal lines to a PDF on the M92 but i guess thats not what you mean.

[Feher]

Originally Posted by OwenA

And, being able to rename the document on the M92 without loosing the scribbles is important, which I gather you can only do if the the scribbles are merged.

You can rename the file and you will have to rename the thumb file too. Then the scribbles will be there

[OwenA]

Originally Posted by Feher

You can rename the file and you will have to rename the thumb file too. Then the scribbles will be there

Thank you.

Is the thumb file the scribble/annotation file? That would make sense.

Can you tell me how to do this? How to I access the 'thumb' file as a separate file to the main pdf.

[OwenA]

Originally Posted by por

It was never possible to merge straight vertical or horizontal lines to a PDF on the M92 but i guess thats not what you mean.

Hi - thanks but no, its written scribble notes.

For some reason sometimes the scribbles on the first page of the pdf file don't merge and /or aren't showing on the merged document. Pg 2 onwards they are there fine, and they are there on the original pdf document, just not on the merged document.

[OwenA]

Originally Posted by Valec

I noticed several times that annotations are sometimes lost. It seemed like it was related to immediately closing the file after making an annotation, but I never paid attention to that. In any case, disappearing scribbles is a serious bug and should be high on the list of things to fix.

I'm a bit slow and have just worked out what 'flip the page' means.

On the times that I have lost scribbles, some of the scribbles had been there for a while and the page had been 'flipped' since adding them. But then I've gone back and added some more right at the end or working on that document, and I probably did then merge the document without flipping the page again. But it's all of the scribbles that are lost in the merge, not just the ones that were added at the end without flipping. But if all the scribbles are stored on the same file I guess it makes sense that you'd loose them all if the file doesn't get time to update.

I'll try and make sure I always do some page 'flipping' before merging and see if this helps.

[Feher]

Originally Posted by OwenA

Thank you.

Is the thumb file the scribble/annotation file? That would make sense.

Can you tell me how to do this? How to I access the 'thumb' file as a separate file to the main pdf.

oops a typo, i wanted to say .sketch instead of thumbs.db
Folder containing the book will have a .onyx folder. Therein you will see .sketch file. This file will have name similar to the book it represents. Rename the .sketch file

[OwenA]

Originally Posted by Feher

oops a typo, i wanted to say .sketch instead of thumbs.db
Folder containing the book will have a .onyx folder. Therein you will see .sketch file. This file will have name similar to the book it represents. Rename the .sketch file

Are these 'hidden' files by any chance? I can't see them them but I know they must be there. And if they are hidden do you know how I can unhide them.

Thank you for all your help on this by the way.