massive slowdowns with heavy annotation

[Bierkonig]

Hello,

So I've had my prs-700 for about 3 weeks and have been working it hard with 1400 page epubs created by calibre (each weighing in around 1.4 MB). I've been highlighting and annotating heavily and when I get past 80 or 90 annotations everything suddenly gets very slow -- all at once, with no drop off in page turn speed for bookmark #75 but then a quick drop off. And then when I hit 90 or so the reader limps along and whenever I reboot (after transferring/syncing material, whether on internal memory or SD) it freezes in startup (no resolution after 3 or 4 hours of patiently waiting for it to reformat, etc). So, I end up having to reboot and erase content, and retransfer from the ebook library and it just is a vicious circle.

The annotation files aren't corrupting -- or at least, I can continue to open the ebooks and edit/add to the annotations using the ebook library software.

I'm wondering if anyone else is using the annotation features as heavily as I am and have any pointers, beyond the obvious: split my books into multiple volumes before creating the epubs in calibre.

[Server]

My guess,

A) You may have stumbled on a processing limitation of annotating (in that format)
to which I highly doubt but not impossible. Did you try the same thing
in a different format?

B) A firmware bug that forgets annotation handling/reporting ... (most likely the
case) You should confirm this and then report to SONY as they may not have
seen this in testing and could address this in the next image.

I will have to play around with the above scenario to see what gives. I've found
some large PDF files open beautifully, and other small (non-optimized?) just choke
the processor to no ends especially when searching an eBook with 800 pages + ...
the system does not display a standby icon and looks as if its frozen but is actually
in processing mode.

Hopefully the next firmware will enhance these issues.

[Bierkonig]

Sony is now contacted. Would be very curious to know if anyone else is using annotations as heavily as I am, and how their performance is.

Perhaps there are some best practices that I don't know about.

The Reader is useless to me if I can't put 1000-2000 annotations in an 1300 page epub. My plan was to do that to each of 10-15 books that I constantly use for reference purposes.

[abermp]

I've had the same problem, exactly...couldn't figure out a way around it so I deleted the books that I had annotated and reloaded them (minus annotations). Unless someone knows a solution, I've decided simply not to highlight or make notes. I don't have to have this feature but I will miss it.

[Bierkonig]

I HAVE to have the feature, or the reader is very useless to me. There's no purpose to having an annotation feature if it's implementation is so incomplete and unstable.

I imagine that Server is correct and it has something to do with the reader not being able to merge/handle lager annotation databases synced from the library software.

[Bierkonig]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Support <support@info.sel.sony.com>
Date: Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 6:46 PM
Subject: Re: PRS700 reader
To: BIERKONIG


Bierkonig,

Thank you for contacting Sony Support.

I'm sorry for the difficulties you are experiencing with your Sony Reader. Based on the information you have provided it appears that the unit requires service. You can find repair information and initiate service for your Reader at:

http://eservice.sony.com

Thank you for your time.

The Sony Email Response Team
C623
Gary


This message and any attachments are solely for the use of intended recipients and may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you received this email in error, and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this email and any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error please contact the sender and delete the message and any attachments associated therewith from your computer. Your cooperation in this matter is appreciated.

Original Message Follows:
------------------------

I have run into difficulty with the reader slowing down, freezing out, and requiring reformat at reboot when Ive added more than 100 annotations to an ePub. See: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37801

Possibly a firmware issue?

[Server]

yeah, thats pretty standard issue "canned corp." response email.
Then again, what did you expect? They will likely want to see your
reader and attempt to reproduce the same anomaly. My guess, if
you don't supply them with the same directory structure and file contents
on your memory card, they will test with their own material, and rubber stamp
it "OK". Make sure you CC them what you have along with a step by step
of what you were doing and you want accomplished.

For the record, I remember reading something in the PDF user manual about
2000 character/word limit on comments to notes(?) I can't remember but
maybe you maxed out on your comments and the processor struggles to
re-index every time a refresh is forced. Just a hunch...

good luck

[Bierkonig]

I'll go to the NYC SonyStyle Flagship and see if I can get anywhere.

I'm very curious if anyone other than Abermp has run into similar problems and if they're hitting similar capability thresholds.

Anyone? And is there another e-ink reader that would support more robust markup?

[Andybaby]

Originally Posted by Bierkonig

I'll go to the NYC SonyStyle Flagship and see if I can get anywhere.

I'm very curious if anyone other than Abermp has run into similar problems and if they're hitting similar capability thresholds.

Anyone? And is there another e-ink reader that would support more robust markup?

you cant, they are asses there all they can do is exchange it if within the first 14 days. i went a few weeks ago.

[Server]

Originally Posted by Bierkonig

Hello,

So I've had my prs-700 for about 3 weeks and have been working it hard with 1400 page epubs created by calibre (each weighing in around 1.4 MB). I've been highlighting and annotating heavily and when I get past 80 or 90 annotations everything suddenly gets very slow --..... snip

After conducting my own tests and increasing the number of notes/
bookmarks, I can't reproduce your anomalies therefore I will not be conducting
further testing as I believe this issue is isolated to yourself. I'm pretty sure we
would have heard from others by now if they were in the same boat.

I'd be curious to see if can post a youtube of your device "massivly
slowing down" because what you might believe is a sony hardware issue
could very well be a memory card issue or file corruption causing the
readers' processor to max out.

Best of luck to you....

[Bierkonig]

I will do this over the weekend and post the link. Thanks for trying to help me figure this out.

Additionally, there really needs to be some software capable of exporting annotations as text. I believe that each epub's annotations file only includes character-position references to the epub, but it would be great if someone could write a script that would output all excerpts of text highlighted and all any annotations as well.

[el.astrologo]

Originally Posted by Bierkonig

Additionally, there really needs to be some software capable of exporting annotations as text.

Hey Bierkonig, what's up?
You might want to take a look at this other thread I started a while ago, Andybaby posts a screenshot of the Sony Library and how you can export highlighted text and annotations, hope it helps.

Cheers