Sudden issues, possibly following recent firmware update, with Kobo Aura N236

[bhaur]

Hello all,

I have a Kobo Aura Edition 2, model N236, that I’ve been using for a while. Yesterday, it was suddenly powered off, and on restart it showed me “restoring…” for a while, followed by a screen showing a pictogram indicating that I needed to plug the device in and restart it. If I did that, the device would start restoring again and then go back to that same pictogram. I removed the SD card, put the N236 image on the card, and restarted the device. After a couple failed runs, I got the device to boot to the intro-wizard screen. However, after connecting to the wifi, the device would update to, presumably, the latest firmware, and move back into the restoring-pictogram loop.

I flashed the SD card again, and this time did not connect the wifi, and set up the device using my PC. It updated, but not to the most recent version of the firmware, I think (due to issues I will get to in a moment, I can’t check the exact firmware, but Kobo Settings showed it was released late in May this year). I chucked some books on the device with Calibre, and loaded a book. Everything seemed to be working again. However, I tried to put the Kobo back into standby by pressing the button on the back. Nothing happened. So now I’m left wondering if the button just broke at the same time the device started having issues, or it’s a software issue. My device is currently powered off, as I changed the settings to let the device power off after 15 minutes of inactivity, and the inly way I can restart it is if I open the device up, unplug the battery, and replug it. I am typing this in the bus, so I can’t quite do this now.

In short, my device gets locked in a restore-instruction screen loop, presumably when I update via wifi, though that’s not 100% confirmed. Secondly, the power button has stopped working. Does anyone know how I should deal with this? In particular, is there a way to short the button, i.e. touch a couple places on the PCB so I can send a button press to the device, so I can check if the actual button is broken, or if it’s a software issue? I guess I could write the Inkbox spftware to the SD to see if that changes anything, but that’s a bit suboptimal. And does anyone have issues with the recent firmware?

Best.