@jgoguen: I tried copying a kepub to a name based on an UUID and placed it in the .kobo/kepub directory directly. On unplugging the device, book did not appear on the unit.
Out of curiosity I used Desktop to add a new kepub and on unplugging, no scan for new material but the book did appear.
I sense that the kepub directory is not actually scanned for material; rather the process of adding books (either via Desktop or Nickel itself) adds the books to the database and the scan process only looks for sideloaded ePubs (and of course sideloaded kepubs with the .kepub.epub name).
If so, I think this takes one down the path that DavidFor has been nervous about; updating the contents table from calibre.
One experiment that might be worth trying.
- Dump the various sql tables for all records related to a given side-loaded kepub and then drop that book.
- Rename the book to a UUID based name, place the file in the kepub directory
- "edit" the exported data to reflect the new name of the file
- import that data back into the database.
Now see if
- the book appears in the Library view on the Kobo
- the book gets stats