Libra 2 Libra 2 frozen, manual reset not doing anything

[Rkob]

Hi,

Last weekend, the following happened with my beloved Libra 2 (bought in June 2022):

• I was reading (with ~60% battery remaining) and made a highlight or a dictionary lookup (don't remember);
• The device froze for a couple a seconds;
• It then skipped to the beginning of the chapter I was reading and switched to the default publisher font (instead "Caecilia" which I was using);
• Tried to change back the font, but the dropdown didn't list all of them, only the Kobo* or Rakuten* ones;
• Exited the book and tried to open another one: got an error message saying that the format was not valid or the file corrupted (don't remember the exact wording);
• Tried to open the original book again: same error message;
• Put the device to sleep with the power button: the device looked asleep and displayed the book cover;
• Tried to wake it again: nothing happened.

It's now frozen and I cannot get it to start-up. 😕
I tried:

• Manual resets (both the "power button down for 30 seconds" and the "page-turn + power button down for 30 seconds" types) => Doesn't do anything;
• Connecting it to a charger => Doesn't do anything, the white LED does not light;
• Letting it charge for a couple of hours and then resetting it => Doesn't do anything;
• Connecting it to my PC: the disk got mounted once under a generic name, but looked empty. I tried again, and the disk does not seem to be detected at all. I may try on a Linux machine later to see if I get more information.

The warranty is long expired but I love this device and want to try to fix it. I would really appreciate some help/guidance from this forum!

Has any of you seen something similar before?
The erratic behavior before the complete freeze makes me think of a memory or file system corruption. Could a corrupted microSD card explain what I see?
Any idea about what I could try to investigate this further?


Regards,
--
Rkob

[Aleron Ives]

It sounds like your SD card may have died, so the OS no longer functions. You could purchase another SD card, ask for a Libra 2 system image in the image request thread, and then try to replace the SD card to see if that will bring it back to life.

[repilo]

After trying everything, you have nothing to lose by opening it up and replacing the micro SD card. I did it when my Libra 2 started freezing or even restarting on its own several times a day. It's not too complicated and is well explained in some posts. In my case, I cloned my own defective card (I assume the writing had started to fail but the original data was still intact), and it ended up as good as new.

[Apollyon202]

Seeing the increasing cases of dying Libra 2 devices probably because of the internal storage, I'll buy some microSD cards. What kind of storage would you recommend? Anything from a trusted brand between 32-128 GB, but it should be A2 class, right?

[Rkob]

Hi,

Thanks for your replies, Aleron Ives and repilo!

I managed to remove the original microSD card yesterday, following the instructions given by ilovekobo and Fritomaster in I changed the sdcard of my Kobo Libra 2.

I will try to flash and install a new card, and see if it revives my device.

Regards,
Rkob

[Rkob]

Originally Posted by Apollyon202

Seeing the increasing cases of dying Libra 2 devices probably because of the internal storage, I'll buy some microSD cards. What kind of storage would you recommend? Anything from a trusted brand between 32-128 GB, but it should be A2 class, right?

Good point, I hadn't thought of the Application Class.
But do we know what the Libra 2 HW supports? It seems that my original card was not that fast (SanDisk Edge, speed class 4).
I don't want to buy a fancy SD card and have it limited by the device HW.

Regards,
Rkob

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Rkob

Good point, I hadn't thought of the Application Class.
But do we know what the Libra 2 HW supports? It seems that my original card was not that fast (SanDisk Edge, speed class 4).
I don't want to buy a fancy SD card and have it limited by the device HW.

Regards,
Rkob

For the most part, what is important to Kobo ereaders—like most Linux devices—is the small block read/write speeds.

In my testing, Samsung and SanDisk have pretty consistently had the best small block speeds. Some cards I tested were pretty pathetic when it came to small block speeds though they easily handled video streams.