Touch Nook Simple Touch Reader firmware update for BestText technology

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by vlark

In addition to what others have mentioned, I've noticed two more:

1. No more browser access. It's gone. Entering a web address in the global find field results in a search of the library or the shop (if wireless is enabled).

2. There's a new preference in Settings > Shop that allows you manage the credit card associated with your bn.com account. This requires WiFi to be turned on.

Web browser would still be needed for proxied wifi, and facebook/twitter registration. Unfortunately without seach-for-web-address, at least one of my proxied connections will probably not work, at least it didn't before.

[Ubermensch]

I just updated. No major improvement so far... The font is slightly crispier, the pages turn faster and the OS seems a bit more responsive, but I expected new features rather than better performance. Real PDF support, landscape mode or something.

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by Ubermensch

I just updated. No major improvement so far... The font is slightly crispier, the pages turn faster and the OS seems a bit more responsive, but I expected new features rather than better performance. Real PDF support, landscape mode or something.

Hoping for, maybe, but there's not any real basis in B&N's track record (or most other manufacturers, for that matter) for having expected new features.

[Grimm]

Honestly the update is described on the download page. It tells you what you're getting with it.

[Ubermensch]

I know, I guess I got excited when the leak was out a few days ago and nothing was mentioned other than "1.1".

[Grimm]

Ahhhh got it.

[Ron.]

the fonts do look great now

[SteveDuck]

...slowest download ever...
(One might think b&n could host the updates on a cloud service with dynamic availability, which could adapt to peak demand...sigh)

Anyway, v1.1 resolved the fuzzy font issues & device response is indeed faster.

My nook2 now seems like a good device, rather than just good enough.

Finally, an e-reader I can take home to Mom.

[Japes]

I followed the instructions exactly as posted, and, my version still says 1.00

[Timur]

Originally Posted by Japes

I followed the instructions exactly as posted, and, my version still says 1.00

Are you trying to do an offline update with the "nook_1_1_update.zip" file?

If yes, do you see the "installing update" screen with the progress bar?

If you do not see that screen and the progress bar, you might have the wrong file (there was a mixup at the website during the first hours and the linked file was wrong, the correct one is named exactly like I have written above and is around 105MB, wrong one was around 160MB).

If the file is the correct one, you might have copied it to a subfolder in the Nook filesystem. It should be copied to the root of the filesystem. Eject the USB device safely and a few seconds later the progress bar screen for the update appears.

[Zapped]

I have a Nook Simple Touch reader that I purchased the first week it was available. I received an email about the v1.1.0 update & since mine was still stuck on v1.0.0 I thought I'd go through the manual update procedure. Big mistake for me, even though it seems to have worked for others here. btw I have never played with any rooting of my Nook, but I do side-load books using Calibre.

I downloaded the nook_1_1_update.zip file, connected my Nook to my PC (85% charged), copied the zipfile to the top of the main Nook directory, then did a safe eject of the device. I left the Nook connected to my PC even though the the Nook directories no longer displayed in Windows Explorer so that I wouldn't run out of battery during the upgrade.

I got the installing update screen, with a progress bar that slowly became full after a minute or so, but then I was stuck on the page that displays the Nook logo along with "Read Forever" and "Your NOOK is starting up...". Every few minutes or so the screen would go blank for maybe a 1/2-second, and return to that screen. Holding the back power button did nothing.

At one point I saw a screen that said my nook was backing out the update, but I returned to this startup screen & can't do anything. I spent 20 minutes on live chat with a tech support person from B&N who finally told me to call 1-800-THEBOOK. After another 10 or 15 unhelpful minutes, I was told B&N would ship out a replacement Nook and I'd have to return mine.

The only suggestion offered was to hold the back power button while simultaneously holding the two lower page-turn buttons on the front. This is a pretty difficult bit of finger gymnastics to perform & my Nook didn't respond to it anyway.

I can't get the Nook to mount on my PC either. Obviously I can just wait for the replacements, but does anyone here know other button-pressing magic I might try?

[ EDIT: I received my replacement Nook Simple Touch reader a couple of days later (last Thu 11/10) and used it through the weekend. It was running v.1.0.1 so this morning I decided to put the v1.1.0 zipfile in the main directory of the replacement Nook again & see if the update would succeed. It did work on the replacement Nook. My bricked Nook remains bricked so I'm boxing it up now for return ]

[Timur]

Originally Posted by Zapped

I have a Nook Simple Touch reader that I purchased the first week it was available. I received an email about the v1.1.0 update & since mine was still stuck on v1.0.0 I thought I'd go through the manual update procedure. Big mistake for me, even though it seems to have worked for others here. btw I have never played with any rooting of my Nook, but I do side-load books using Calibre.

I downloaded the nook_1_1_update.zip file, connected my Nook to my PC (85% charged), copied the zipfile to the top of the main Nook directory, then did a safe eject of the device. I left the Nook connected to my PC even though the the Nook directories no longer displayed in Windows Explorer so that I wouldn't run out of battery during the upgrade.

I got the installing update screen, with a progress bar that slowly became full after a minute or so, but then I was stuck on the page that displays the Nook logo along with "Read Forever" and "Your NOOK is starting up...". Every few minutes or so the screen would go blank for maybe a 1/2-second, and return to that screen. Holding the back power button did nothing.

At one point I saw a screen that said my nook was backing out the update, but I returned to this startup screen & can't do anything. I spent 20 minutes on live chat with a tech support person from B&N who finally told me to call 1-800-THEBOOK. After another 10 or 15 unhelpful minutes, I was told B&N would ship out a replacement Nook and I'd have to return mine.

The only suggestion offered was to hold the back power button while simultaneously holding the two lower page-turn buttons on the front. This is a pretty difficult bit of finger gymnastics to perform & my Nook didn't respond to it anyway.

I can't get the Nook to mount on my PC either. Obviously I can just wait for the replacements, but does anyone here know other button-pressing magic I might try?

There seems to be 2 different button-pressing magic you can do with Nook STR. I have executed them both successfully trying to rollback the first update(1.0.1) to 1.0.0.

The one you have described, by pressing the two lower page-turn buttons during boot, seems to achieve what "erase and deregister" procedure does. It just clears the user partition but leaves the system partition as it is.

The second one requires multiple consequential boot interrupts by pressing and holding the power button during boot process. I have executed it by more than 20 times, and eventually Nook has gone to restore screen and it has restored the system partition to stock(1.0.0) in the end.

I guess, from what you have written, your Nook seemed to do the second procedure just by itself, without requiring you to hold the power button. I am just shooting in the dark here, but this suggests that maybe your power button is stuck pressed. You might try the second way yourself, maybe you will get lucky and be able to use your Nook while waiting for the replacement.

[tomsem]

Well, the update has fixed most of what I had issues with:
- TOC displaying only top level
- inability to select hyphenated words
- lackluster fonts (this latter didn't bother me much, but in retrospect, it should have)
- performance is much better (again, I thought it was okay before, but apparently I was wrong about that)

There is now a bug where if you select a hyphenated word, it will 'Look up' the correct word, but if you 'Highlight' it fails to highlight the word but instead highlights text on the 'upper' line that was not part of the initial selection. And there still seems no way to extend selection to previous or next page. But this is at least some progress.

The 'text' options panel is as goofy as before (e.g. why can't I change text size without turning off Publisher Defaults?). And as I had suspected, without access to the browser via Search, I'm unable to navigate past an SSL error I get with one of the wifi networks I connect to (which I was able to do before). Still no cover images for side-loaded content, nor any way to delete it.

Still I think Nook STR is at least finally functioning about the way I'd expected when I purchased it and began using it. I may keep this thing after all, if only to root it at some point.

Has anybody noticed any change with PDF? Seems to reflow at every text size except #2. Thought it used to have another 'notch' for non-reflow mode.

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Still no cover images for side-loaded content, nor any way to delete it.

There are cover images for sideloaded content, it's just fussy about how the OPF is formatted. I wrote a tool to update your books so the Nook can read your cover data (and it'll even add the cover meta tag to books which specify a Mobipocket/MS Reader cover but not an ePub one).

Originally Posted by tomsem

Has anybody noticed any change with PDF? Seems to reflow at every text size except #2. Thought it used to have another 'notch' for non-reflow mode.

The other notch was at #1 - #3 was where reflow started before.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by ATimson

The other notch was at #1 - #3 was where reflow started before.

So I wasn't crazy after all (at least not in that particular way). Now it also reflows on #1, not that it is good for anything. I don't remember now if the other non-reflow notch was good for anything either, but at any rate things are not improved.