PRS-505 Pulling my hair out! PRS-505

[alchemyst]

My PRS-505 has been rebooting itself - out of nowhere - while I'm reading.

When this happens - it doesn't save any bookmarks - and doesn't go back to the page you were reading.

So - its a TEDIOUS process trying to find your place again - and often once I finally find the right page - it does the reboot thing all over again.

It's happened to me a few times on other novels, (the spontaneous reboots) - but never to the extent it is happening with the present novel I'm reading.

A friend shared this file with me - and it appears that it was converted from an html file to epub, using calibre.

This particular file - for whatever reason - the 505 will not change the font size either. (When I try, it goes into reboot mode).

What causes this to happen? Is there a way to fix this?

Been driving me CRAZY ... I must have gone through the whole reboot process 10 times already on just this one novel ... and I'm only on page 58!

Anyone? Please help! Thanks in advance!

A

[JSWolf]

The only time I had a problem with a rebooting ePub on my 505 was when on older version of Calibre botched the conversion of the graphics from BMP to JPG. What you could do is unzip the ePub and pull out all the graphics and resave them in case it's a botched JPG conversion.

[grooks]

Sounds like a particular ebook is causing the rebooting problem. Possibly try to convert the html file to LRF.

[alchemyst]

Converting the orginal html (that was in the folder along with the epub) - to lrf, seems to have worked. (I can even change font size).

The epub file was 238 pgs long (altho as I turned the pages when reading, it didn't always change the page count. Is that normal?).

The same file (converted to lrf from html) - is now 1405 pgs!

Does this huge difference in page count sound right?

(Aren't epub and lrf both compressed files?)

My 505 firmware is v 1.1.01.25200. It's the same one that was installed when I bought the reader in July 2009.

Is there a newer version firmware, and is it worth updating?

Thanks for the help!

A

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by alchemyst

Converting the orginal html (that was in the folder along with the epub) - to lrf, seems to have worked. (I can even change font size).

The epub file was 238 pgs long (altho as I turned the pages when reading, it didn't always change the page count. Is that normal?).

The same file (converted to lrf from html) - is now 1405 pgs!

Does this huge difference in page count sound right?

(Aren't epub and lrf both compressed files?)

My 505 firmware is v 1.1.01.25200. It's the same one that was installed when I bought the reader in July 2009.

Is there a newer version firmware, and it it worth updating?

Thanks for the help!

A

Did you hack your reader to add in a clock? If you did, then you've added in a buggy hack that causes the page numbers for ePub to not be properly displayed. You are supposed to get page numbers like 1, 1-2, 2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5-6, 7, 8 etc... The only hack for the 505 that now gives you a clock and proper page numbers is PRS+.

As for the LRF having many more page numbers, the reason is that Calibre's conversion to LRF adds extra line spacing to every single line in the LRF. It's so you don't notice the bug in the LRF code where the line between paragraphs is larger then it should be for two paragraphs where the style changes. Like the first paragraph of a book that has no indent and then the next one does have an indent. The line spacing between them is more then it should be and to make it not look too big, all the lines look like that.

What you can try is to convert the ePub to ePub and see if that fixes it. It's possible it might as maybe the ePub was created with an older Calibre and the courrent will fix whatever is wrong.

[alchemyst]

Thanks JS ...

I've just noticed I'm running an old version of Calibre myself ... the newest version is downloading as we speak. (Love the program).

Thanks for explaining the difference in page count ... I would have never known this ... learn something new every day.

I find the lrf files easy to read - perhaps because of the extra spacing. And -its NICE not to be rebooting every 2 or 3 pages.

Great help - thank you again!

EDIT: No never changed anything (not smart enough to hack anything) ...

A

[JSWolf]

Since you didn't change anything, then you should be getting proper page numbers. Are you getting pages (with ePub) like 5-6?

Not rebooting is a good thing. But I would be interested in knowing if a Calibre ePub to ePub conversion works.

[blt50203]

I had the same issue with two titles. Everytime I would try to access them the reader would reboot. I'll try a reconversion

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by alchemyst

The epub file was 238 pgs long (altho as I turned the pages when reading, it didn't always change the page count. Is that normal?).

This is normal for epubs on the 505. Epub doesn't give you a new page number with each new screen it gives you a new page every 1024 bytes of data. This means that on your 505 no matter what size the font the number of pages will be the same.

Originally Posted by alchemyst

The same file (converted to lrf from html) - is now 1405 pgs!

Does this huge difference in page count sound right?

LRF sets the pages numbers by how many screens it will take to display the entire book. One page for each screen. this is why this number changes when you change font size.

Originally Posted by alchemyst

My 505 firmware is v 1.1.01.25200. It's the same one that was installed when I bought the reader in July 2009.

That firmware is fine. There is some code that can cause the 505 to reboot. I ran into this while creating a epub of the Beautiful Soup documentation. I wasn't interested enough to actuall track down the offending code.

[kassiekie]

Sounds like a particular ebook is causing the rebooting problem. Possibly try to convert the html file to LRF.

I'm going to try this when I get home.

I am having the same issue where while viewing certian titles, the page changer becomes slugish (and now for me this is a sure sign of what is to come)....then the reader reboots itself.

What I have noticed is that it dosn't matter what format the file is. I've had it happen on a epub and an rtf file.

It's a really big pain waiting for all the books to load again. which take about a full battery charge and half so it's goodbye reading for the day if i'm not at home with my charger

When it does, it no longer recognizes what book I was just reading (show's no book) on the main page and I have to start over which is a pain.

I'm running the newest firmware on it the 1. something or other, and im using calibre (newest version) on a windows 7 computer. and it's a PRS-505 which worked beautifully before some of my files (comics converted from comic format (forget what the extension was now) to lrf) totally destroyed the formatting of everything and i had to purchase a new sd card b/c the old one would not work properly after that ..it was a real mess and a terrible month for my reader as I was ready to chuck it out my second story bedroom window!

[Darth_Bane]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The only hack for the 505 that now gives you a clock and proper page numbers is PRS+.

I've installed the clock on my 505 with PRSCustomizer (not PRS+) the day I bought it and I get perfect page numbers and clock as well. The latest version does not seem to be buggy.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Darth_Bane

I've installed the clock on my 505 with PRSCustomizer (not PRS+) the day I bought it and I get perfect page numbers and clock as well. The latest version does not seem to be buggy.

You got suckered into responding to a post that is almost 11 months old. JSWolf wasn't saying that PRS customizer was buggy, just that it didn't display the ePub page numbers as expected. When he described the problem in the PRS+ project it took me a while to fully grasp what he was referring to but he was correct and PRS+ was fixed. The odds are he is right about PRS customizer but for most of us we won't even notice the difference.

[Darth_Bane]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

You got suckered into responding to a post that is almost 11 months old.

[cue Homer Simpson voice] Doh!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Darth_Bane

[cue Homer Simpson voice] Doh!

Question...

When you installed the hacks using PRSCustomizer, do you get page numbers like 51-52 of 271? Because if you never get X-Y of Z then you indeed do have the page number bug caused by the clock.