Put KOReader back without a computer.
PocketBook firmware updates regularly delete one small file called koreader.app. Your books, settings and reading progress are untouched. Only the launcher is gone, which is why the icon disappears or does nothing when you tap it.
After a PocketBook firmware update, the KOReader icon is often simply gone.
For PocketBook readers running KOReader.
What the tool does
KOReader Rescue keeps a copy of your launcher and puts it back when a firmware update removes it. It is one readable shell script, it runs on the reader itself, and once it is installed you never need a cable for this again.
- Copies your existing
koreader.appinto a hidden folder insideapplications, and copies it back when it goes missing. - Writes what it did to
applications/.koreader-rescue/rescue.log. - Touches nothing else. No root, no jailbreak, no system files, no account.
- Reaches the network only when there is no local backup to restore from.
Install it while KOReader still works
Rescue saves a copy of your own launcher the first time you open it. Install it on a healthy reader rather than waiting for something to break. Either route below gets you to the same place.
With a cable, once
- Connect the reader to your computer over USB.
- Copy
KOReader-Rescue.appinto theapplicationsfolder, next tokoreader.app. - On macOS or Linux, make it executable: chmod 755 /Volumes/<reader>/applications/KOReader-Rescue.app
- Eject the reader and open Rescue from the applications list. It should say Armed.
Without a cable, from inside KOReader
- Connect the reader to Wi-Fi.
- In KOReader, open the tools menu and start the terminal plugin.
- Paste this and run it: wget -O /mnt/ext1/applications/KOReader-Rescue.app \ https://inkstream.tukew.com/fixkoreader/KOReader-Rescue.app \ && chmod 755 /mnt/ext1/applications/KOReader-Rescue.app
- Close KOReader and open Rescue from the applications list. It should say Armed.
When KOReader disappears
Open Rescue from the applications list. It puts your saved launcher back, says on screen what it did, and asks you to restart the reader. That is the whole procedure.
If you never armed it and the reader is on Wi-Fi, Rescue asks this site for a launcher matching your installed KOReader version instead. It checks the size and the checksum before installing anything.
What it cannot fix
Some firmware releases break KOReader itself. The launcher is present, the icon is there, and KOReader still shows a crash screen or drops straight back to the home screen. No script repairs that, and Rescue says so rather than pretending it fixed something. It reads KOReader's crash log to tell the two cases apart.
One case is worth knowing by name, because it looks alarming and the usual advice does not help. If the crash text ends in libinkview.so: cannot enable executable stack, the new firmware ships a system library that demands an executable stack while KOReader's own runtime does not ask for one. Installing a newer KOReader does not change that. It needs a fix in the KOReader build, so check the releases page and the project's issue tracker.
The parts you underline are worth more than the reader they live on
A book is a stream of words, and the passages you mark are the islands in it. On a stock e-reader they stay stranded there in a sidecar file, until the device breaks or you move on to the next book.
Inkstream is where they land instead. It collects highlights from KOReader while you read and gives every book a page you can actually return to.
- Highlights arrive while you are still reading, over Wi-Fi
- Every mark keeps the sentence before and after it, so it still makes sense a year later
- Threads connect passages that belong together, across different books
- Turn any passage into a card worth sharing
- Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books and reMarkable alongside KOReader