Aura If epubs open at all, fonts unchangeable

[kobospice]

My spouse and I have run into some very sudden issues with our Kobos (Glo and Aura) when it comes to library books. Whereas before it was smooth and problem-free, transferring/reading books from the library, now it's agony at best. After 3 hrs last night and alot of "already fulfilled by another user", "no permission to copy the book", "oops this doc couldn't be opened", can't do this, can't do that, I figured out that I had to uninstall and reinstall a million things, authorize and deauthorize this and that, etcetc, so that I could finally do that which was a piece of cake only last week.
Anyway, now that we have a couple of library books on our readers - some open-able, other just black icons with more ominous error messages - there is no longer a way to change fonts style or size. At all. Zero. And that's a feature we like due to those pesky 40-something vision changes! :/
Has Kobo or Adobe made changes to things?
Of course this isn't a problem with books bought from Kobo - I just bought 2 and there are no issues.
I've no problem buying books, but we also like to be able to load up our readers with library stuff, too.
Any help or insight is appreciated.
Thanks.

[Cinisajoy]

Sounds like the font is publisher set.

[compurandom]

I've found that sometimes books from the library come in with strange fonts and huge sizes. If I go into calibre, and find the book on the device, I can use the KoboUtilities extension to "Set eReader font for selected books" and set the size and font to something sane, and then everything is fine.

I suspect that the font is set by Adobe Digital Editions based on the size of the computer screen font it wants to use with its built in reader, and this is somehow wildly inappropriate for the kobo screen.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by kobospice

My spouse and I have run into some very sudden issues with our Kobos (Glo and Aura) when it comes to library books. Whereas before it was smooth and problem-free, transferring/reading books from the library, now it's agony at best. After 3 hrs last night and alot of "already fulfilled by another user", "no permission to copy the book", "oops this doc couldn't be opened", can't do this, can't do that, I figured out that I had to uninstall and reinstall a million things, authorize and deauthorize this and that, etcetc, so that I could finally do that which was a piece of cake only last week.
Anyway, now that we have a couple of library books on our readers - some open-able, other just black icons with more ominous error messages - there is no longer a way to change fonts style or size. At all. Zero. And that's a feature we like due to those pesky 40-something vision changes! :/
Has Kobo or Adobe made changes to things?

There hasn't been a firmware update release since the beginning of the year, so Kobo haven't made a change recently. I don't know about ADE, but I haven't heard any recent complaints about new ADE versions.

The first paragraph sounds like problems getting the books and then maybe getting them onto the device. At least one of them sounds like a problem with the library. Maybe the library has changed something and you needed an ADE update to match that. Or the credentials needed to be refreshed somehow.

Once they are on the device, the black icon usually means DRM and that the device and book don't agree on the authorisation. But, we'd really need to see the message to know.

For the font settings, what is missing? Is the icon at the bottom of the screen? Or are the options missing or disabled? Or do they simply not have an affect?

compurandom suggestion might work. It really depends on why the settings can't be changed. Some of the options can't be overwritten because of things in the book.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by compurandom

I suspect that the font is set by Adobe Digital Editions based on the size of the computer screen font it wants to use with its built in reader, and this is somehow wildly inappropriate for the kobo screen.

No, that isn't happening. ADE doesn't change the books when sending them to the device and the other files it creates contain no information about fonts.

[compurandom]

Originally Posted by davidfor

No, that isn't happening. ADE doesn't change the books when sending them to the device and the other files it creates contain no information about fonts.

In that case, it must be a firmware bug with something uninitialized.

If I use kobo utilities in calibre to read the font size on a book freshly sideloaded by ADE, it comes up as something like 40pt with 3-5 words per line. If I try to change the font from within the kobo, I can only change the relative font size which can't quite get to a normal size, and changing the size makes all the rest of my books use a teeny font.

If I reboot the kobo or set the font size using Kobo utilities, it all works normally.

[JSWolf]

I do borrow ePub from Overdrive. I have no problem in ADE changing the font size.

Are you sure that ADE and the Kobo Readers are authorized with the same account information?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by compurandom

In that case, it must be a firmware bug with something uninitialized.

If I use kobo utilities in calibre to read the font size on a book freshly sideloaded by ADE, it comes up as something like 40pt with 3-5 words per line.

Which button are you using? The "Get configuration" button reads the config file. The "Get settings" reads the database. For a new book that hasn't been opened, there are no settings to get. The settings are only saved when you set change the font options while reading the book. The font settings are saved to the config every time they are changed. And they get used whenever you open a book that doesn't have its own settings saved.

If I try to change the font from within the kobo, I can only change the relative font size which can't quite get to a normal size, and changing the size makes all the rest of my books use a teeny font.

If I reboot the kobo or set the font size using Kobo utilities, it all works normally.

There have been problems over the years where the font settings changing broke and needed a restart of the device to get it going. With the current firmware, there have been problems with "Kobo Tsukushi Mincho" and "Kobo UD Kakugo" that might cause this.

[compurandom]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Which button are you using? The "Get configuration" button reads the config file. The "Get settings" reads the database.

Don't remember. I'll have to play with it and check.
It is possible I scrambled some default config; however, if I did, it only affects things from ADE, and not kepubs from calibre.

In playing with a kepub loaded by calibre just now, I noticed when I hit "get configuration" it resets the font to the first one in the list. My default font is a side loaded one, probably Linux Libertine or something, although I usually use Georgia (or publisher default) on ADE books.

Would you consider that a bug?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by compurandom

Don't remember. I'll have to play with it and check.
It is possible I scrambled some default config; however, if I did, it only affects things from ADE, and not kepubs from calibre.

Scrambling the config for this is pretty hard. For most of the config file, if the options don't make sense, defaults are used. And if you don't like the settings you have, just edit the config file and remove the appropriate section, or remove the config file completely.

For something like what you describe, it is either something in the book blocking it, or something failed in the firmware. If it works after a restart, then it is probably a failure. In that case, there might be a stack log file in the .kobo directory for the error. If so, we can give it to Kobo to help work out what went wrong. If it is there, the file name is "stack_nn.log" where "nn" will be two digits.

In playing with a kepub loaded by calibre just now, I noticed when I hit "get configuration" it resets the font to the first one in the list. My default font is a side loaded one, probably Linux Libertine or something, although I usually use Georgia (or publisher default) on ADE books.

Would you consider that a bug?

I don't do any handling for sideloaded fonts, so no, it isn't a bug. It's a deficiency

I'll have to think about how to handle that. I don't really want to read all the fonts on the device to get the names. I might be lazy and if the config file or database have non-default names add those to the list as I find them. Or might be good and fetch the names from the font files. Actually, that probably is easy as the file names have to match the internal names. That means I just read the file names, strip off the bold/italic etc and I should have the right names. I'll try and add this sometime during the week.

[tshering]

Originally Posted by davidfor

the file names have to match the internal names.

I read this again and again on this forum. But I do not think that this is completely correct. I do change for instance file names of fonts in order to change their position in the hierarchy for automatic font replacement, without changing the internal font name.

[compurandom]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I'll have to think about how to handle that. I don't really want to read all the fonts on the device to get the names.

Obviously, the minimum functionality would be to at least grab the current default so that I can change the config font size without having the font itself reset.

The maximum functionality would also offer a list of fonts not currently on the device that could be copied to it. :-P (not saying I'd want that or use it often)

I'll see if I can play with an ADE book later today.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by tshering

I read this again and again on this forum. But I do not think that this is completely correct. I do change for instance file names of fonts in order to change their position in the hierarchy for automatic font replacement, without changing the internal font name.

Well, I accidentally just added a font whose file name didn't match the internal name. And it seems to have worked. And I've tried another and it works as well. I remember doing this in the past and it not working, so something has changed in the firmware.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by compurandom

Obviously, the minimum functionality would be to at least grab the current default so that I can change the config font size without having the font itself reset.

Just as I should have expected, Kovid has already coded an easy way to get a list of font families from a directory. That makes this easy to do.

The maximum functionality would also offer a list of fonts not currently on the device that could be copied to it. :-P (not saying I'd want that or use it often)

I can't say I'm interested in doing this.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Well, I accidentally just added a font whose file name didn't match the internal name. And it seems to have worked. And I've tried another and it works as well. I remember doing this in the past and it not working, so something has changed in the firmware.

Hmmm... I seem to remember the original explanation by George Talusan(?) for the strict font naming requirement was the inability of QT to easily introspect fonts. Given the constant upgrading of QT, it is possible that that capability may now be present and is being used.