BOOX Page · Troubleshooting

Apps look grey, blurry or ghosted on the BOOX Page

Text looks washed out, faint traces of old pages linger, or scrolling smears. This is almost always the refresh settings, not a fault.

Software: BOOX firmware
Difficulty: Easy
Time: 15 minutes
Last tested: August 2026
Last updated: August 2026

Symptoms

Text and menus look grey rather than crisp black.
Faint images of previous pages stay on screen.
Scrolling a list or web page leaves a smeared trail.
One app looks fine and another looks terrible.

Before you start

Know that this is a settings problem in almost every case, not a broken screen.
Have five minutes to change settings per affected app.
A true screen fault shows as a permanent line or blotch that a full refresh never clears.

Which fix do you need?

What are you seeing?

Everything looks grey, in every app The global refresh mode is set too fast
One specific app looks bad, others are fine That app needs its own optimisation set
Old pages linger until a manual refresh Raise the full-refresh frequency
A permanent line or blotch that never clears Likely a hardware fault

Most common cause

The global refresh mode is left on a fast setting, or an app has no per-app optimisation set, so Android's normal fast rendering is shown through e-ink with no correction. Grey text is usually a fast mode plus no contrast boost; ghosting is a full-refresh frequency set too low.

Fixes

Fix 1 Fix the global refresh mode

The global mode is the default every app uses until you give it its own. If it is on a fast setting, the whole device looks grey and grainy.

Swipe down from the top-right for the control centre and find the refresh mode selector.
Set it to "HD" or "Regal" — the Page is a reading device, so there is little reason to run it faster globally. Do not leave it on "Fast", "Speed", "Ultrafast" or "A2".
Tap the manual "full-screen refresh" button once to clear the current ghosting, then check text.

Fix 2 Optimise the specific app that looks bad

Per-app settings override the global mode. An app with none set falls back to defaults that often look wrong for its content.

Long-press the app on the Apps screen and choose "Optimise", or use the control-centre optimisation icon.
Set its refresh mode — HD or Regal for text, Balanced or Fast for a browser or store.
If text is grey, turn on "enhance contrast" or "bleach whites" a little — not to the maximum, which thins fonts.
If the app's layout is tiny or huge, adjust the DPI slider, then reopen the app.
Turn on "animation filter" to stop page-curl and fade effects that smear.

Fix 3 Deal with ghosting and rule out a hardware fault

Ghosting is normal e-ink behaviour that a full refresh clears. If a full refresh never clears a mark, it is not ghosting.

In the affected app's optimisation panel, set "full refresh every N pages" to 1 for the cleanest result, or 3 to 5 as a compromise.
For KOReader, do this inside KOReader (menu, gear, Screen) and turn BOOX's app-level full refresh off, so they do not conflict.
Add a "refresh" shortcut to the Navigation Ball for a one-tap manual clear any time.
If a line, band or blotch stays after a manual full refresh and a restart, that is a panel fault — contact BOOX support with a photo.

Undo / recovery

All of these are settings changes and are safe to undo. If you lose track of what you changed, the optimisation panel has a "reset" for that app, and the control centre lets you set the global mode back. Nothing here touches your books or apps.

If everything looks grey, fix the global refresh mode first. If it is just one app, that app needs its own optimisation set. Ghosting that clears on a manual full refresh is normal; a mark that never clears is a hardware issue.