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Old 01-30-2017, 05:31 PM   #1
gravdev
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KA1 - Factory Reset Hangs at Boot

Hi everyone,

I'm beginning to suspect that my KA1 is bricked ... I've searched through the forums as best I could, but haven't found any reports similar to what I've been experiencing with my device. Figured I'd at least make a post before either attempting to get an RMA from kobo, or abandoning hope altogether. *Fingers crossed* that someone here might have some insight into the problem.

Okay so first, some exposition. I've recently been having some *strange* issues with my KA1, which I purchased during the pre-order period and has been mostly problem free up to now. Sometime in November I installed KSM'08 and had been updating the Koreader nightlies every few weeks. This setup has been running smoothly up until a few days ago, when I tried to open a specific pdf in nickle. Nothing about this pdf is particularly noteworthy, aside from it being passed through k2pdfopt to crop margins and optimize for the KA1 display (most of the pdf's on my KA1 have been optimized by k2pdfopt, but none other than *this specific one* has caused any issues).

Anyway, I've been able to open and read this pdf in both nickle and koreader for weeks now. However, as of a few days ago, opening this pdf would, without fail, cause nickle to freeze and require a forced poweroff. The first time this happened, my device would fail to bootup again - it would simply go through the initial flashing blue light sequence, then go to a blank screen. After wrestling with this for a while, leaving it to charge for a few hours between attempts, I somehow managed to get the device to bootup into KSM'08 by connecting it to my computer.

Things seemed to be working well with the device for the rest of the day. After removing the problem pdf, then re-transering it from Calibre, nickle was able to open and read the pdf without any apparent issue. Feeling satisfied that things were resolved, I shut the sleepcover and put the device in my backpack overnight. However, when I went to use it the following day, the screen was blank and unable to bootup. Wash-rinse-repeat charging for hours and attempting to boot. I got impatient and did a manual factory reset of the device, which seemed to work at first... However...

TLDR:
After performing a manual factory reset on my KA1 (as outlined here: https://www.kobo.com/help/en-US/arti...aura-edition-2), the device will begin to boot (5-dots screen), but hangs once it gets to the second dot. From here, the screen will stay frozen with 2/5 dots, while the status light blinks blue. If I force the device to power of, it will go through the same boot sequence, but will flash red / light-red until forced to power off again. So far, I have been unable to get the device to mount on either my linux or windows machines.

If anyone has any suggestions, I would be very grateful.
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Old 01-30-2017, 06:46 PM   #2
robko
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You do have the device plugged into power when you're trying to factory reset right (that's an actual requirement, not just a suggested good practice, for the KA1)? If you do into a wall charger or USB? I'd try a different cord/charger/USB port on the off chance that might help. Beyond that I'm out of ideas.
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Old 01-31-2017, 05:09 AM   #3
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How was KSM configured before you tried to factory reset the device? I am asking because, if KSM was configured to run after each boot (and not to start nickel automatically after a very short time), seeing now runnings squares some seconds after powering on, can indicate that you actually reset the device. But however this might be, I would repeatedly try to factory reset the device. I had to factory reste a Kobo Touch some years ago several times in a row, in order to make it work.
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Old 01-31-2017, 11:59 AM   #4
gravdev
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Quote:
Originally Posted by robko View Post
You do have the device plugged into power when you're trying to factory reset right (that's an actual requirement, not just a suggested good practice, for the KA1)? If you do into a wall charger or USB? I'd try a different cord/charger/USB port on the off chance that might help. Beyond that I'm out of ideas.
@robko:The factory resets have been attempted with device connected to various power sources: two different computer's and two different wall-warts. Hasn't seemed to make any difference

Quote:
Originally Posted by tshering View Post
How was KSM configured before you tried to factory reset the device? I am asking because, if KSM was configured to run after each boot (and not to start nickel automatically after a very short time), seeing now runnings squares some seconds after powering on, can indicate that you actually reset the device. But however this might be, I would repeatedly try to factory reset the device. I had to factory reste a Kobo Touch some years ago several times in a row, in order to make it work.
@tshering: IIRC, KSM was configured to run after each boot, then start nickel after ~20 sec delay without receiving user-input. (Pretty sure about that, but I'm regretting having not just dumping the entire emmc contents to a tarball before now - would've been nice to have for reference. )

I've attempted to factory reset 3~4 times prior to my initial post, but I can certainly make a few more goes at it and report back later tomorrow (would tonight, but I find myself swamped with homework currently). Thanks for the input, all!
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Old 02-01-2017, 10:24 PM   #5
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Tried factory resetting enough times that I lost count. The only new development since my first post is that, my device started to display the following message after every yea-many reset cycles.



Seeming like all I have left to try is to get an RMA from kobo... Given that the device has, ostensibly, been factory reset several times over - can I reasonably assume that my personal data has been cleared from the eMMC? Does performing a factory reset *normally* remove KSM from the device entirely?
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Old 02-02-2017, 12:06 AM   #6
davidfor
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@gravdev: That factory reset screen is a built-in safety. If the device has tried to boot several time and nickel has not been started successfully, this screen will be displayed. I would suggest doing the factory reset as requested and seeing what happens. If you don't get to the point it starts the setup, then send it back as faulty.

A factory reset whips almost all the device. If formats the root partition and the user partition. The only part it doesn't touch is the recovery position. And the only places there might be any information be about you is the root and user partition. The previous factory resets should have removed any identifying info and KSM. Or this one should. And if it doesn't, there is no way for you to do anything more. And would be very hard for anyone else to.
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Old 02-02-2017, 10:20 PM   #7
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@davidfor: Thanks for the info! It's reassuring to have some outside confirmation that the root and user partitions are wiped as part of a factory reset. Guess I'll try getting in touch with kobo support to send it in.

It would be so amazing if we had a means of booting into some type of recovery image. It's a shame they didn't include the internal microSD slot like in some of their other models...

(On a side note, is anyone aware of any teardowns of the KA1? The only one I've seen is /kobo-aura-one-comics-pdfs-guts-video/ (original sauce is in Italian), which at least gives some idea of the KA1's internals, but it would be cool if there was a more detailed/hi-res teardown. (Still, gotta give props to the guy who decided to do a teardown on day one.)
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Old 02-03-2017, 11:05 AM   #8
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There are a bunch of photos in that review you linked to, I'm not aware of any other teardown for this reader. I guess without internal sd card there is not much point to opening it up
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Old 02-03-2017, 05:28 PM   #9
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Battery shown in the Aura KA1 is larger than circuit board.
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Old 02-03-2017, 05:34 PM   #10
gravdev
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@frostschutz: Doh, you're totally right . Somehow, when I checked out that site earlier, that image carousel didn't load properly in my browser. Seemed odd that they'd go through the trouble of opening up their device and not post pics... Feeling a bit foolish for not realizing my error before posting - my bad.

Still though, I it would be ideal if they had at least one photo of the entire PCB with everything in focus. Basically, I wish they had a shot similar to this, but with the device taking up the entire image frame at the same resolution.



The photos they have posted are the best I've seen of the KA1's internals, but a lot of the shots employ a pretty shallow DoF, making a lot of the interesting bits too blurry. That aside, they certainly look nice for the purposes of a review.

I'm primarily interested in a detailed photo of the PCB to see if there is a serial header onboard, allowing for all manner of interesting projects, such as
kobo - NetBSD Wiki/. The thru-holes in this image look promising, although the labels are out of focus. :/



Admittedly, when it comes to embedded systems, I'm but a mere hobbyist. Most of my experience in this realm, to date, consists of following guides written by people smarter than myself, in order to recover otherwise bricked devices. So while I might know enough to be dangerous, without some level of expert hand-holding, I don't quite trust myself to void my warranty messing with the underlying hardware. Well, not yet at least
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Old 09-09-2017, 10:27 AM   #11
peterkobovox
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just happen to me, but I got it back after following resetting guideline on kobo website
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