Last_modified= 766 books today

[theducks]

This has happened before and I don't know what triggers it (other than the expected bulk metadata changes)

I renamed (consolidated) a couple of series. (using the Manage Series PI)
Changed 1 to a hierarchical name (made it a child of another series) (used Rename in the Tag Browser)
Added a couple of formats to books (my normal way, DnD)

I DID NOT:
rename/delete any tags.
run Modify EPUB or Quality Check on a block of files
count pages on a block of files

The Authors are varied
The series seem to be involved, I see multiple books belonging to a whole series. Some hierarchical (but not all), some only 1 out of many.
{ID} is all over the board
No obvious pattern

[BetterRed]

@theducks, you are not alone - I thought it was just me, your post prompted me to go snooping

I downloaded Calibre 0.97 at 2012-11-24 13:15:38 and installed a few minutes later (as I always do)

The Modify date on the subfolders of C:\Program Files (x86)\Calibre2 lie between 2012-11-24 13:20:24 and 13:20:46

3852 books in my main library have Modify time-stamp of 2012-11-24 13:21:35, 7 books have Modified timestamps that are later - these are the books I've added/modified since Saturday.

The Modify date on the opf files in 1,665 book folders lie between 2012-11-24 13:21:40 and 13:24:48 - some of the books are members of series others are not.

I am 99.99999999'% sure I did not do a bulk operation on my entire library (or any substantial part of it) immediately after I installed 0.97 on Saturday afternoon.

BR

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@theducks, you are not alone - I thought it was just me, your post prompted me to go snooping

I downloaded Calibre 0.97 at 2012-11-24 13:15:38 and installed a few minutes later (as I always do)

The Modify date on the subfolders of C:\Program Files (x86)\Calibre2 lie between 2012-11-24 13:20:24 and 13:20:46

3852 books in my main library have Modify time-stamp of 2012-11-24 13:21:35, 7 books have Modified timestamps that are later - these are the books I've added/modified since Saturday.

The Modify date on the opf files in 1,665 book folders lie between 2012-11-24 13:21:40 and 13:24:48 - some of the books are members of series others are not.

I am 99.99999999'% sure I did not do a bulk operation on my entire library (or any substantial part of it) immediately after I installed 0.97 on Saturday afternoon.

BR

766 is less than 20% of my Library.
Of the books affected: some have 2009,2010,2011,2012 (record) creation dates. (as I said...No obvious pattern

[BetterRed]

@theducks - are the Modified timestamps on those 766 books the same (you may need to tweak the date format to see a 'real' timestamp) and if so are they close to the time at which you upgraded to 0.97.

My Create dates are 'ok' but I don't make any use of create date.

I was using modify date as the secondary key in my Default View Manager configuration, and as the primary key in one of the other 2 View Manager configurations. I still am, but no longer for any useful purpose

BR

ps : I suspect many people don't-use/look-at/care-about Modified Date, from memory its not in the default Book List columns

[theducks]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@theducks - are the Modified timestamps on those 766 books the same (you may need to tweak the date format to see a 'real' timestamp) and if so are they close to the time at which you upgraded to 0.97.

My Create dates are 'ok' but I don't make any use of create date.

I was using modify date as the secondary key in my Default View Manager configuration, and as the primary key in one of the other 2 View Manager configurations. I still am, but no longer for any useful purpose

BR

ps : I suspect many people don't-use/look-at/care-about Modified Date, from memory its not in the default Book List columns

Not even close to my update (Saturday)
Time stamp Hour (my default) 113 at 6AM, the rest at 7am (I rebooted because of snailishness). Clearly, something I did triggered this. Since I did not (intentionally) do any of the usual causes???

EDIT: first seems to be at 06:49 last seems to be 07:12 (timestamp on the OPF)

[BetterRed]

I'm going to look for a way to implement my own modify date

Maybe a simple plug in to update a Custom Column - MyModifyDate

If I forget to click it - then it's my problem.

BR

[kovidgoyal]

Some piece(s) of metadata common to the those 766 books must have changed. Impossible to know what unless you keep a backup of your library in which case you can diff the opf files to see what has changed.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Some piece(s) of metadata common to the those 766 books must have changed. Impossible to know what unless you keep a backup of your library in which case you can diff the opf files to see what has changed.

Well Tags would be the only 'common' thing I could think of over that many books, and I don't remember renaming a tag. Series: Yes

[theducks]

this may be a clue
I merged a single tag into an existing tag (many books) using the Tag Browser.

foo_books [nnn]
foo_book [1] ->right-click: rename: foo_books

The number of last_modified was still lots bigger (~700) than the destination tag.
could it be all variants of the tag are getting touched?

[kovidgoyal]

IIRC when you merge a tag, all books that have the original tag, not the destination tag are modified.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

IIRC when you merge a tag, all books that have the original tag, not the destination tag are modified.

That was what I expected. 1 book
something caused 700 others to change their modified date. That tag rename was the only thing I did at that time(stamp). The destination had a few hundred. That leaves the question why 500 more got touched. Maybe I am a klutz and more books were (unintentionally) selected than visible for some other operation

I will keep watching. maybe I will find what updates so many books