Instructions for patching firmware 3.17.3

[tshering]

Originally Posted by Nick_1964

Didn't thought about the size.. I never have more then 25 books or so on it, so never stumbled into that, but walking trough all the patch settings takes for me even the same time as copy and unzip, the space must be there before otherwise you was not able to upgrade the first time to when sideloaded... Makes me wonder, what if the upgrade started by wifi and there is not enough room,does it check before or just stop when the space isn't enough.. Well..never mind, thank you for claring it out for me

I only wanted to say that copying a KoboRoot.tgz that contains three files takes much less time as copying the original KoboRoot.tgz or even the compete update package. And the processing time of extracting three files on the device is also much shorter than extracting the original archive .

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by tshering

I only wanted to say that copying a KoboRoot.tgz that contains three files takes much less time as copying the original KoboRoot.tgz or even the compete update package. And the processing time of extracting three files on the device is also much shorter than extracting the original archive .

I did understand, sorry if I wasn't clear, I was wondering the other things but this is not the place to ask them. I was glad with your answer!

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Nick_1964

Didn't thought about the size.. I never have more then 25 books or so on it, so never stumbled into that, but walking trough all the patch settings takes for me even the same time as copy and unzip, the space must be there before otherwise you was not able to upgrade the first time to when sideloaded... Makes me wonder, what if the upgrade started by wifi and there is not enough room,does it check before or just stop when the space isn't enough.. Well..never mind, thank you for claring it out for me

The firmware checks the space before it downloads and unpacks the update package. You will get a message to clear some space if there isn't enough.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The firmware checks the space before it downloads and unpacks the update package. You will get a message to clear some space if there isn't enough.

Thank you davidfor !

[tshering]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The firmware checks the space before it downloads and unpacks the update package. You will get a message to clear some space if there isn't enough.

I am interested in this point. Could you please explain a little how you know this. I wonder whether there is a check before downloading, or whether the message is shown only after the attempted download failed on account of the space.
And where can I see that the space is checked before unpacking the package?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by tshering

I am interested in this point. Could you please explain a little how you know this. I wonder whether there is a check before downloading, or whether the message is shown only after the attempted download failed on account of the space.
And where can I see that the space is checked before unpacking the package?

Purely by experimentation. Some time ago, I did some experiments to see if this was a way to block firmware updates. It does, but it also blocks the rest of sync.

I checked before my post with my N905 Touch. When I had 100MB left, it downloaded the update, but didn't unpack it and displayed an error. When I reduced it to 50MB, it gave the error immediately when it found the update. I didn't write it down, but scanning through the strings in nickel, I think it was "To make space on your eReader for this update, please remove some books or dictionaries.".

[tshering]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I checked before my post with my N905 Touch. When I had 100MB left, it downloaded the update, but didn't unpack it and displayed an error.

Thank you for your answer! Did you by chance see how the story continues if you create some more free space at that point or sometime later. Nickel is expected to check at some points whether there is an update zip file being available and whether there is enough space to unpack it now. If that is how it works, then it would maybe not be necessary for the user to unzip the update package when side loading. But sure there could be some other things.
One more question: Did the un-unpacked zip file have the same file name as it was in the download link?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by tshering

Thank you for your answer! Did you by chance see how the story continues if you create some more free space at that point or sometime later. Nickel is expected to check at some points whether there is an update zip file being available and whether there is enough space to unpack it now. If that is how it works, then it would maybe not be necessary for the user to unzip the update package when side loading. But sure there could be some other things.
One more question: Did the un-unpacked zip file have the same file name as it was in the download link?

I had to do it again to check.

The firmware update downloaded as the same name in the link. When it downloaded and there wasn't enough space to unpack it, the message "Please remove some books or dictionaries to make space for this update to complete." was displayed. I was using telnet to check for the file name and it disappeared when the message was displayed.

For sideloading the update, it does have to be unpacked first. I've tested that before. Not deliberately, just forgot to unpack the file.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by tshering

I do not know under which conditions this is required. As reported in another thread, which I cannot find right now, running as administrator by right-clicking and selecting run as administrator causes a problem. The solution proposed by DNSB was to add "CD %~dp0" after "@ECHO off", if I remember correctly (or at least something to that effect). So the bat file would start with

@ECHO off
CD %~dp0

I'll add that to the batch file. I will remove the note about running as administrator too, if it is not somthing that is commonly needed then it is probably not helpful.

Originally Posted by tshering

I think I did not mention this before. With the windows version you can take a shortcut. There is no need to edit the patch files. Leave them as they are and call the bat file with the argument "restore", for instance:

>cd C:\GeoffR\patches\patch_kobo_3173
>3.17.3.bat restore

I'll add that to th note. Edit: I can't think of a simple way to explain clearly how to do that. The current instructions are the same for everyone, I will probably just confuse things trying to explain about running things from the command line on Windows.

[GeoffR]

This patch prevents the EPUB reader from recognising the line-height or font styles, which should make it impossible for the publisher to override the line spacing set from the device's adjustment slider. It will have bad effects on the formatting of many ePubs, the same as stripping the line-height and font styles during a calibre conversion does.

I don't recommend using this patch, but for those of you who are already taking the drastic step of routinely stripping line-height and font styles with Calibre before slideloading the book, this alternative is no worse and should also work for DRM ePubs.

The patch is in two parts, both parts must be enabled for the patch to work:

Part 1 (paste into libnickel.so.1.0.0.patch):

Spoiler:

<Patch>
patch_name = `Force user line spacing in ePubs (part 1 of 2)`
patch_enable = `no`
# Multi-version patch: 3.3.0 - 3.17.3+
#
# This is part 1 of 2. Also enable part 2 in librmsdk.so.1.0.0.patch
#
# This patch prevents any line-height style set in the book's stylesheet from
# being recognised. It will spoil the formatting of some books, but will ensure
# that the line spacing set with the adjustment slider always takes effect.
#
find_base_address = `\0\0\x20\0l\0i\0n\0e\0-\0h\0e\0i\0g\0h\0t\0`
replace_string = 0004, `l`, `_`
</Patch>

Part 2 (paste into librmsdk.so.1.0.0.patch):

Spoiler:

<Patch>
patch_name = `Force user line spacing in ePubs (Part 2 of 2)`
patch_enable = `no`
# Multi-version patch: 3.3.0 - 3.17.3+
#
# This is part 2 of 2. Also enable part 1 in libnickel.so.1.0.0.patch
#
# This patch prevents any line-height style set in the book's stylesheet from
# being recognised. It will spoil the formatting of some books, but will ensure
# that the line spacing set with the adjustment slider always takes effect.
#
find_base_address = `\0line-height\0`
replace_string = 0001, `l`, `_`
find_base_address = `\0font\0`
replace_string = 0001, `f`, `_`
</Patch>

This patch should also work with older firmware versions as far back as 3.3.0. If using it with versions 3.15.0 or earlier make sure part 1 appears in libnickel.so.1.0.0.patch after the `Unitless ePub line height` patch.

This patch is not compatible with the old `Enforce user line spacing in ePubs` patch. (That patch is not very effective in current firmware versions, I'll delete it in future versions unless someone still finds it useful.)

Edit: Note that the font style is a shorthand that sets other styles as well as line-height. It is not used in ePubs very much, but on those occasions where it is this patch will probably have much worse effects on the formatting than usual. If you want to allow the font style to be recognised, which could prevent the user line spacing working just on those uncommon ePubs which have this style, you can comment out the last two lines (find_base_address and replace_string) in part 2 of the patch.

Edit2: To those of you who use it: Is it best to block line-height and font by default, or should the patch just block line-height and leave the blocking of font as an option?

[tshering]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I had to do it again to check.

I am sorry for that.Thank you for checking again.

Originally Posted by davidfor

The firmware update downloaded as the same name in the link. When it downloaded and there wasn't enough space to unpack it, the message "Please remove some books or dictionaries to make space for this update to complete." was displayed. I was using telnet to check for the file name and it disappeared when the message was displayed.

I see! I was wondering was is happening to the file.

[tshering]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

I'll add that to the batch file.

Thank you!

Originally Posted by GeoffR

I can't think of a simple way to explain clearly how to do that. The current instructions are the same for everyone, I will probably just confuse things trying to explain about running things from the command line on Windows.

Right! This might have been the reason for not having it mentioned in the beginning.
I am sorry for hijacking this thread with the questions about the FW update.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by tshering

I am interested in this point. Could you please explain a little how you know this. I wonder whether there is a check before downloading, or whether the message is shown only after the attempted download failed on account of the space.
And where can I see that the space is checked before unpacking the package?

I ran into this when I was not using an external uSD card and the firmware update popped up the error message. I'm not certain when the check was done since it's been a while but I think it was after the file was downloaded and the update was started.

[Nick_1964]

I think it is because when the update is downloaded, it must be extracted in order to do the install, so at that moment it need double space..the space for the zip,and for the extracted files..

[tshering]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I ran into this when I was not using an external uSD card and the firmware update popped up the error message. I'm not certain when the check was done since it's been a while but I think it was after the file was downloaded and the update was started.

Thank you, DNSB! According to Davidfor's observations, there are two cases. 1) If there is very few space left, the update package is not downloaded at all. 2) If there is more space left but still less than needed for unpacking, the update package is downloaded and afterwards deleted. (This description is a little unfair, I know!). Ah, and then there is the third case: Everything goes well.