Kobo Arc - Fixing a startup boot loop

Kobo Arc stuck in a boot loop

A friend of mine had their Kobo Arc suddenly stop working.  The device would start booting then not make it past the boot animation (hang and not make it to the OS).  Of course they followed all the typical troubleshooting found on Kobo's Website with the link below.

https://help.kobo.com/hc/en-us/sections/360002811734-Troubleshoot



However this doesn't help typically when you can't get to the OS level and my friend even booted into fastboot/recovery and did a full Factory Reset of the device.

However this doesn't help you if there is an issue with a corrupt file or if the built in storage is starting to degrade.  Remember it's 2019 and this device was released November 2012.

However I like a challenge and had a look at it.  Since it could get into fastboot we have some options.

There are Roms on XDA we could play with and help us troubleshoot

https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2507886

We can re-flash the OS and see what happens which can be found here

https://help.kobo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019865014-Manually-update-your-Kobo-Arc-software

We chose to just to re-flash the stock OS, which is fine by me, but we have to have an android dev setup on a device, which I happen to have.  If you don't you will need a PC with the Following setup

Download and Install the Android Dev Studio

https://developer.android.com/studio

Once Completed Under Appearance & Behavior -> System Settings -> Android SDK -> enable the Google USB Driver

Enable Google USB Driver

Now you can get the ADB tools from the SDK Manager but for my workflow and using the command line I like putting everything in one place so I went and downloaded the Platform-tools from the link below and extracted it to C:/ and renamed the folder to adb.

https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools.html

Open CMD prompt as an Administrator and CD to C:\adb  (Keep this open were going to need it later)

ADB Directory for working out of for flashing

I downloaded the Stock ROM for the Arc from Kobo's website and copied it from my downloads folder to the adb folder on C:\ as shown below.

ADB Directory on C:\

Then I booted the Arc up into fastboot and connected it with a good USB cable (I had issues with 2 cables hooking up the kobo as it was only charging and not detecting the adb connection).

IMPORTANT!!!  Windows should see the Kobo in fast boot mode but it won't be accessible.

Select Apply Update From ADB

Once you select apply update from ADB you will see the following screen on the kobo

Now send the package you want to apply to the device with "adb sideload "

From your administrator command prompt window type the following command

adb sideload "zeus-ota-781.zip"

If your kobo is seen by Windows, you will see the following

ADB Push

Once that has been pushed to the device it will verify and either install or abort installation.  In my case it installed the firmware without an issue and we have a working Kobo Arc.

A working Kobo Arc