Firmware 3.2.0

[treadlightly]

Originally Posted by davidfor

If the same thing happens when you power off and on, then it is the database. And yes, the fix is to log out and back in.

Just to be sure, this fix requires wireless or a sync with the desktop to log back in to your account, right?

[Lucas Malor]

Originally Posted by Aydan

Class 10 cards usually have worse random access times than class 4 or 6 except for the ultra or extreme variations.

After a little googling, I must say I do not agree with this one statement too. According to Tom's Hardware and Hardware.info, there's class 10 SD card that have fast random access and there's not so expensive (Samsung ones in particular):
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/m...marks,169.html
http://us.hardware.info/reviews/4544...s-a-difference

The fact class > 4 are less well-performing for random access seems to come from a xda-developers thread. This benchmark method seems not reliable to me, since it comes from different users with different card readers (and some of them has different buses!)

Anyway, an UHS sd card would not perform as well on Kobo, since it probably does not have an UHS bus.

[booklover6]

When I "check disk" via Kobo utilities, it says "disc image malformed." So I will log out when it's done processing.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

Just to be sure, this fix requires wireless or a sync with the desktop to log back in to your account, right?

Yes, it will. There are instructions in the forum to update a table in the database so that the sync isn't needed. You could also restore a backup of the database if you have one.

[susaz]

Originally Posted by Lucas Malor

After a little googling, I must say I do not agree with this one statement too. According to Tom's Hardware and Hardware.info, there's class 10 SD card that have fast random access and there's not so expensive (Samsung ones in particular):
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/m...marks,169.html
http://us.hardware.info/reviews/4544...s-a-difference

The fact class > 4 are less well-performing for random access seems to come from a xda-developers thread. This benchmark method seems not reliable to me, since it comes from different users with different card readers (and some of them has different buses!)

Anyway, an UHS sd card would not perform as well on Kobo, since it probably does not have an UHS bus.

Always asumed that since there's little access to the card (the reader loads the book in the buffer, you start reading, and only it access as you go through blocks of memory), class 2 and class 4 cards were fine. HOWEVER I've had a high failure rate in almost all cards lately. I usually buy Sandisk SDs, they're not expensive and I've never had any failing on me. Is the reader chomping them? I have a new card and no battery drain so far. I rebuilt all of my database as we speak, but it's as if the reader gets slower and slower over time indexing things. It's never been this slow before.

[susaz]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I stopped using the SD card for various reasons and there was zero improvement using internal memory in speed. There have been/are SD card issues, but opening collections menu is incredibly slow even with no SD card if a fair amount of collections.

Helen

How many books do you have? Some odd 1300 in mine, has no problems opening collections, try deleting the whole collection from the device every now and again and reload it all in the same location...

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by susaz

How many books do you have? Some odd 1300 in mine, has no problems opening collections, try deleting the whole collection from the device every now and again and reload it all in the same location...

I think around 1300. maybe less. I have several large collections and a fair number of collections overall. I have no trouble opening them, just takes a minute or two as opposed to a second or two on other readers.

Helen

PS I have for various reasons deleted and reloaded, changed collection types and sizes. With less collections it is faster, but still very slow. And of course if you go to a collection and decide to look at another one instead, the same 1-2 minute wait occurs and again and again.

No big deal just means I seldom use my Aura HD.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

No big deal just means I seldom use my Aura HD.

Have you tried going down to two or three pages of collections, and then restarting?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by susaz

How many books do you have? Some odd 1300 in mine, has no problems opening collections, try deleting the whole collection from the device every now and again and reload it all in the same location...

The time taken to open the collections list is dependent on the number of collections and how many books are on them. Adding 200 books to a collection seems to have more affect than adding 20 empty collections. I've played with the database enough that I can't work out why it's so slow. And unfortunately, they don't cache the list. If you change the sort order, it is rebuilt from scratch.

The performance has improved with the firmware versions. But, it doesn't seem to help Helen. On my Glo I have 36 pages of collections. The first page is all over 100 books. With the firmware I am currently running, it takes 20-25 seconds. That is still to long especially considering that building the book list for 2000 books with their covers is well under 10 seconds. Helen and I have talked about this in the past, and I can't see a reason why it is so much slower for her. The Aura HD should be faster than the Glo.

[Lucas Malor]

Maybe the problem is the thumbnails? If sort order is rebuilt every time, maybe also the book thumbanails. Indeed there's an option to disable them in the book list.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Lucas Malor

Maybe the problem is the thumbnails? If sort order is rebuilt every time, maybe also the book thumbanails. Indeed there's an option to disable them in the book list.

The collections list doesn't display any thumbnails. You see those when you open the collection. Building the collection list should only access the database. There isn't any need to access the file system for either books or the covers. If it does, then some developer at Kobo needs a good talking to.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by booklover6

Have you tried going down to two or three pages of collections, and then restarting?

Well yes and of course with 2 or three collections it is perhaps as fast as other readers with 1000 collections.

On the Sonys or kindles for example, the number of collections or the number of books in the collections makes no appreciable difference. I don't have a lot of kindle experience except for managing my mothers, but it seems pretty fast.

But having two or three collections is like having to or three books on the reader. Fine for many but not for me.

When I got my first kobo, a mini, I was dismayed to find that with around 500 books and maybe 100 collections it could take 40+ seconds to open the collections. This is compounded by the fact that to back of a collection or stat over and select a different collection takes the same time and if you are a person who maybe likes to browse around a little sometimes this is pretty tedious. And if you hit the screen accidentally during the long wait, then a collection opens and you are back at square one.

I have spent many hours with the mini and the Aura HD and the mini trying different things. Every new firmware last year I would take another crack at it. Some improvement, such as shaving 6 seconds off of 80 seconds occurred.

I know I only start a new book 5 or 6 times a week so spending 10 minutes to an hour to do it isn't the end of the world, just I find it tedious.

If this was my only ereader I would chose the next book in calibre or make up a monthly list and only have those books on the reader before going to bed, where I do most of my reading, and use the search as others advocate but I actually enjoy the browsing process on occasion and having a lot of books available is one of life's little luxuries for me.

I do use the Kobo when my mother visits for a few days and has left her kindle behind as she is 88 and I couldn't inflict the Kobo on her, but that is about it.

Helen

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The time taken to open the collections list is dependent on the number of collections and how many books are on them. Adding 200 books to a collection seems to have more affect than adding 20 empty collections. I've played with the database enough that I can't work out why it's so slow. And unfortunately, they don't cache the list. If you change the sort order, it is rebuilt from scratch.

The performance has improved with the firmware versions. But, it doesn't seem to help Helen. On my Glo I have 36 pages of collections. The first page is all over 100 books. With the firmware I am currently running, it takes 20-25 seconds. That is still to long especially considering that building the book list for 2000 books with their covers is well under 10 seconds. Helen and I have talked about this in the past, and I can't see a reason why it is so much slower for her. The Aura HD should be faster than the Glo.

Strangely enough the Aura HD did not seem any slower than the mini with the same number of books. I've broken my mini now, which is unfortunate as it was more stable swipe-touch wise than the HD so I used it more.

My biggest problem now is having higher expectations due to even my first (and subsequent) ereader(s), now an antique in the ereader world performing much better.

My second problem is I seem to have a dud Aura HD in that I still get double/triple page turns, backwards instead of forwards, opening on the wrong page, and have encountered pretty well every bug around. Last week I noticed that the back button after a search does nothing.

If Kobo was my first reader, perhaps I would think it was okay. Probably in fact.

Kobo has some nice features, the biggest of which is the Kobo utilities and the kobo calibre driver/interface. Just not enough nice feature to overcome the faults. (like cumbersome navigation of the collections pages for another)

I haven't totally given up and sold my Aura HD although if someone I disliked came up to me and offered my $80 for it I might. And while my mini worked better overall I won't be buying another.

Helen

[chrisridd]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The collections list doesn't display any thumbnails. You see those when you open the collection. Building the collection list should only access the database. There isn't any need to access the file system for either books or the covers. If it does, then some developer at Kobo needs a good talking to.

Installing strace (does that work on current firmware?) should reveal what system calls are being made while navigating the collection, and ultimately where the time's being spent. It seems like kind of a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but in the absence of anything else...

[TechniSol]

I'd be willing to bet that 99% of the riddiculous delays stem from either them being stuck with db related functions that don't fit their needs or they are not realizing(not testing) the code with large collections is so slow...

The simplest indication of a lack of optimization is the time it takes to redisplay a collection when the sort is changed. If the sort order was maintained as changes were made to the db and the sorts stored as indexed linked lists of pointers to the next/previous record it would be lightning FAST! Even adding or deleting items from the index would be fast as you need only change the fwd pointer in the record prior to the new item and the backward pointer in the one that formerly was pointed to by the fwd pointer. Granted with three fields to choose from you have to maintain three indexes and 2 pointers for the beginning and end of each sorted index if you'd like to be able to travel them in both ascending or descending sort orders, but that's not a lot of overhead for the presorted speed advantages.

If they are doing that and are still slow I'm clueless to what they are wasting time doing. Back in the day, late eighties, I had this sort of database system implemented on an Apple ][+ with thousands of record entries for a business and it flew considering the hardware and interpreted BASIC limitations...