[jgoguen]

So I can re-enable statistics for side-loaded KePubs using the KoboTouchExtended calibre driver, but doing so creates an extremely unhealthy "us versus them" situation with Kobo.

As part of their normal sync operation, the Kobo wireless and Kobo Desktop sync operations will remove any book in the "official KePub" folder that it thinks would not be synced to the device. There's no way I've found to disable that behaviour, but it's also a perfectly reasonable thing to do. What happens to the side-loaded KePubs (that I send with the option to enable KePub stats) during the sync? The files are deleted from the Kobo device. If you have the setting to show all of your purchased books, they will remain in the library list but they become "download this book" entries which cause problems if you actually try to download them (because there's no Kobo book with that UUID), or if you only show books on the device they're removed from the Library view. Again, there's nothing nefarious in this - it's the completely legitimate outcome of a perfectly reasonable sync process.

To have in-book reading stats for side-loaded KePubs using the KoboTouchExtended driver, you therefore must (while you have side-loaded KePub files anyway) disable wireless on your device, never turn it back on, and never again use the Kobo Desktop software. Firmware updates either need to be side-loaded manually (although I bet I could write a calibre plugin to get them... but it's completely unsupportable by Kobo), done when you have no side-loaded KePub files on the device, or done anytime over wireless or Kobo Desktop and then you would have to delete and re-send all your side-loaded KePub files after the upgrade.

Why did Kobo disable side-loaded KePub stats in the first place? Because they felt the stats were not accurate. Enabling this driver feature will not improve stats accuracy.

As someone who never purchases books from Kobo anymore (I've found cheaper and/or better quality books elsewhere almost every time) this causes me personally no grief aside from how much time was wasted because Kobo would rather spend developer time breaking side-loaded files instead of fixing real bugs. But I know there are people who purchase books from Kobo, and this would cause extra effort in getting your purchases onto the device and may (because we don't fully understand the KePub structure) not be the same quality book you purchased. And the behaviour would be rather unexpected; just imagine you've sent books using calibre, then you purchase a book from Kobo on your device, and suddenly all those books you sent with calibre are suddenly gone!

If you use the Pocket integration available in Firmware 2.9 or later, the Pocket sync happens with the standard wireless sync. This means all the issues with losing your side-loaded KePub files apply when syncing Pocket. You can maybe avoid this by syncing Pocket manually from the Pocket screen.

When using side-loaded KePub stats, the overall book percentages don't seem to be stored properly, causing the overall book percentage to be shown as either 0% complete or 1% complete no matter where you are in the book.

And, to top it all off, because you would be using 100% unsupportable code (unsupportable by Kobo anyway), you would need to remember to not contact Kobo unless you can reproduce the issue with a book purchased from Kobo and synced to the Kobo device using official methods.

I'd like to hear from all of you people who use the KoboTouchExtended driver with your Kobo device(s) with your opinions on whether you think enabling side-loaded KePub stats are a good idea now that you know the issues. I'd also like to know if this makes you more likely to purchase Kobo books (and less likely to use this plugin) or more likely to purchase books from non-Kobo retailers and use this plugin for KePub features. Even if someone has already posted with your exact opinion; if only one person says it, I don't see all the others who agree. That said, please try to avoid a "me too" post; seeing an opinion sticks out more for me than seeing a quote and a "yea, what they said" post.

If anyone feels the need to contact Kobo about this, please remember to be polite and respectful, remember that this is third-party code that they have no obligation (and no ability) to support, and part of Kobo's job is to encourage people to buy more Kobo books.