Stuck and need help. Kobo Mini.

[Jennifer78]

I recently got a replacement router (from AT&T, same model as before) and now my mini won't connect. I have now updated my firmware to 4.38.21908 set my modem to B/G/N, 20 MhHz,WPA-2 and changed the 2.4 and 5 GHz names to prevent band steering. Its still not working and I am not sure where to go from here. Can anyone help or provide suggestions to fix this?

[geek1011]

We're gonna need more details. What do you mean by "won't connect"? At what point does it fail?

[Jennifer78]

Sorry about that. It cannot even see my network at all. On my homepage with the wifi switch on no networks are found and if I go into my settings and manually join and scan none are found. So then I tried to add the network manually and it says its unable to join, try again.

[geek1011]

Are any other wifi networks visible?

[Jennifer78]

No, unfortunately nothing is visible.

[meeera]

Are you able to turn on a phone hotspot and see if it can see that?

[Cootey]

Have you taken your Mini out of the house to see if other WiFi networks show up? Meeera’s suggestion is a good one, too.

I found a discussion on the AT&T forums where somebody’s router had disabled the 2.4Ghz band. Something called bandwidth steering may be causing the problem, though I don’t know if this is your issue. More details in that forum. https://forums.att.com/conversations...d5f2f606df0f16

Update: I’m not sure how I missed it, but you already addressed band steering.

[Jennifer78]

Originally Posted by meeera

Are you able to turn on a phone hotspot and see if it can see that?

Very interesting. I can't hotspot my phone but I do have a portable hotspot from Straight Talk. The wifi scan on the reader does not pick it up and it won't join when I manually add it in.

[Cootey]

I don’t have this problem, but I’m very interested in this topic because I have a Kobo Mini as well. I’m running 4.35.20400 on it currently. It’s due for an update, but I haven’t been in a rush to do it.

You might have a problem with your current update. In my search on the net on this topic, I’ve come across many threads where older Kobos suddenly don’t show Wi-Fi connections. They all seemed to run into this problem after an update, though their situations were all different.

You haven’t mentioned if you can connect to your desktop computer through a USB cable. I’m wondering if Kobo Desktop can see your Mini. If your Mini can mount to your computer, you might want to back up its database.

Calibre makes a backup of the database when I mount my Kobos, but I also run this script on my Mac once a month for a more comprehensive backup.

#!/bin/sh                                                       
mkdir (destination folder)     
cp -Rvp /Volumes/KOBOeReader/ (destination folder)                                              
open (destination folder)

After I backed thing up, there are a few things I would try if I was in your situation. First, I would try to reinstall the firmware that worked prior to this upgrade. Some people find that downgrading a firmware restores functionality. It’s possible that you had a router problem which you fixed, but then complicated things by also updating your firmware on your mini, which gave you a new problem.

After that, I would enter firmware reset territory. It’s complicated now due to the mandatory security update Kobo that I’m sure you’re already familiar with (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=314748). But I’ll hold off going into that until we hear back from you.

[Jennifer78]

Originally Posted by Cootey

I don’t have this problem, but I’m very interested in this topic because I have a Kobo Mini as well. I’m running 4.35.20400 on it currently. It’s due for an update, but I haven’t been in a rush to do it.

You might have a problem with your current update. In my search on the net on this topic, I’ve come across many threads where older Kobos suddenly don’t show Wi-Fi connections. They all seemed to run into this problem after an update, though their situations were all different.

You haven’t mentioned if you can connect to your desktop computer through a USB cable. I’m wondering if Kobo Desktop can see your Mini. If your Mini can mount to your computer, you might want to back up its database.

Calibre makes a backup of the database when I mount my Kobos, but I also run this script on my Mac once a month for a more comprehensive backup.

#!/bin/sh                                                       
mkdir (destination folder)     
cp -Rvp /Volumes/KOBOeReader/ (destination folder)                                              
open (destination folder)

After I backed thing up, there are a few things I would try if I was in your situation. First, I would try to reinstall the firmware that worked prior to this upgrade. Some people find that downgrading a firmware restores functionality. It’s possible that you had a router problem which you fixed, but then complicated things by also updating your firmware on your mini, which gave you a new problem.

After that, I would enter firmware reset territory. It’s complicated now due to the mandatory security update Kobo that I’m sure you’re already familiar with (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=314748). But I’ll hold off going into that until we hear back from you.

Thank you. I backed up my kobo and reverted to 4.34.20097 with no luck. I then went down the firmware this list https://pgaskin.net/KoboStuff/kobofirmware.html Flashed each new one, one by one testing wifi as I went all the way to the bottom without any luck with that either. I also checked my H2O version 2. It connects with my wifi just fine with its latest firmware so it seems to be a Mini problem. Is the next step a reset and would you mind to walk me through?

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by Jennifer78

Thank you. I backed up my kobo and reverted to 4.34.20097 with no luck. I then went down the firmware this list https://pgaskin.net/KoboStuff/kobofirmware.html Flashed each new one, one by one testing wifi as I went all the way to the bottom without any luck with that either. I also checked my H2O version 2. It connects with my wifi just fine with its latest firmware so it seems to be a Mini problem. Is the next step a reset and would you mind to walk me through?

You certainly were thorough! It’s a shame none of those efforts paid off.

The factory reset is in More>Settings>Device Info. This is a soft factory reset that will restore everything to the base level of the current firmware. You’ll probably lose sideloaded books, but that is what the backup is for.

If that doesn’t restore Wi-Fi, I would do a hard factory reset which restores your Mini to its original firmware when it shipped from the factory. You will bump into the mandatory update issue since the original firmware is quite old, but there are steps on this site so I’ll try to update this post with a link.

To do this deeper factory reset, either take off the back of you Mini and follow the instructions here (https://help.kobo.com/hc/en-us/artic...your-Kobo-Mini) or enable the developer tools on your Mini.

Select the magnifying glass at the top right of the home screen menu and type “devmodeon” in a search. This will seem to do nothing, but it actually enables developer options in More>Settings>Device Info at the bottom.

At More>Settings>Device Info>Developer Options scroll down to page 3 and select “Reset”.

I really hope this helps you, because otherwise it’s likely a hardware issue with your WiFi component on the motherboard.

https://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/20...date-deadline/

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=354211

[Sonnenfee]

Originally Posted by Jennifer78

I have now updated my firmware to 4.38.21908

For which Kobo model you took the firmware?
Try the newest or one of the older firmware versions for the Kobo Glo.

I’ve had a Wi-Fi issue with my Kobo Mini few months ago and at this time the latest firmware for the Kobo Glo solved the problem.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Jennifer78

I recently got a replacement router (from AT&T, same model as before) and now my mini won't connect. I have now updated my firmware to 4.38.21908 set my modem to B/G/N, 20 MhHz,WPA-2 and changed the 2.4 and 5 GHz names to prevent band steering. Its still not working and I am not sure where to go from here. Can anyone help or provide suggestions to fix this?

Try disabling the 5Ghz network and leave just the 2.4Ghz on and see what happens.