CALIBRE WILL NOT RECOGNISE TITLES OR AUTHORS

[D..]

I have been using Calibre for some while and when I moaned recently to a friend that I find Calibre not recognising any authoris or tiles when I input any books very annoying, she was surprised and when we compared notes, I couldnt believe that Calibre behaved so differently for someone else. So, we compared our preferences and still, even with exactly the same preferences, when I add a book I get a letter then unknown - never ever any title or author, no matter what format. For any information whatsoever I have to input metadata, yet my friend inputs a book and gets the title and author. I have tried everything, even uninstalling and reinstalling and no difference. Mind you I was surprised that Calibre even after uninstalling, & deleting the Calibre file that I had, immediately stored books in my old folder - how did it know this on a new installation?

I would be grateful if anyone could help please so that when I add a book I get a title and author and not just unknown - what am I doing wrong??? Help!

[desertgrandma]

Welcome to MobileRead, D........

My only question is you are using the "edit meta data informatioln" to change the title/author fields?

If thats not the answer, someone way more knowledgeable will step in soon I'm sure.......

[chaley]

desertgrandma has the right of it -- you can change the metadata.

My assumption is that you want calibre to get it right in the beginning, or at least closer. To help you, we need more information.

- What kind of books are you adding? By that I mean what format (epub, mobi, pdf, txt), not what genre.

- What version of calibre are you using? On what operating system (Windows, Mac, etc)?

- What is the setting of the preference 'Read metadata from file contents rather than from file name'? (preferences -> adding books)?

- If the preference 'Read metadata ...' is unchecked, then what is in the 'regular expression' box? And what do your file names look like? (A real example would be best.)

Ball is in your court.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by D..

ISo, we compared our preferences and still, even with exactly the same preferences

Your preferences may be the same, but some of your plugins may be disabled. Check Preferences - Plugins - Metadata Reader plugins and make sure they are all enabled (see attached).

If they are all enabled follow chaley's advice to gather more info so we can try other things.

BTW, when you uninstall and reinstall calibre the configuration directory isn't removed so reinstalling calibre ends up using the old configuration.

Try the following to start calibre with completely default settings:

Note: I just followed these exact steps to ensure they worked as written.

1. Click on the library icon in the top row. A window will pop up like the second image attached. Write down the path to your library. Close window.
2. Go to Preferences - Advanced - Miscellaneous and open the Calibre configuration directory.
3. Quit calibre (ctrl-q)
4. Move all of the directories and files in your configuration directory to a temporary location.
5. Ensure that your configuration directory is now empty.
6. Start calibre
7. It will ask you to point to the location of your calibre library (the path you wrote down earlier) and then what device you have. When you are done with those two questions your library will open with a completely default set of preferences and all your plugins will be set to their default state.

[D..]

It worked, thanks so much! Not really sure which part worked as I followed all of your instructions and then tried inputting a book - there was the title and author, the first time ever!
Thank you everyone for your input, I am now a happy reader!

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by D..

It worked, thanks so much! Not really sure which part worked as I followed all of your instructions and then tried inputting a book - there was the title and author, the first time ever!
Thank you everyone for your input, I am now a happy reader!

Glad we could help.