Best Way to Recover from STUPIDITY

[Gary_M_Mugford]

Hi all,

My only defense is that I'm on painkillers for a back problem. I did something very, very stupid. I misused the Remove Books|Remove Files of a Specified Format options to get rid of a bunch of extra PDFs that I had converted to Mobi's. What I was SUPPOSED to do was run a filter (formats:"=PDF" and formats:"=MOBI") but I 'missed' that step first and then selected All. When I then did the Remove Books thing, I should have twigged that things were awry when I had MORE choices than just Mobi and PDF. But, like I said, I was on drugs. Pressing OK made approximately 157 books go poof.

I actually realized my Oops pretty quickly and used Windows 7's restore from the recycle bin to put the books back. But, of course, that didn't return them to the humble database, a database I hadn't backed up in five days (an error in my nightly backup batch file had left me without backup via that method, but I still had my most recent weekly backup batch file working). My backup of THAT database shows a date that would result in the expunging of approximately 160 books that I entered in that five day period. And by books, I mean a mixture of new books but mostly PDF's of magazine articles and my own writings. The PDF's that I deleted en masse stretch back about three months. BUT they are all still there in the folders. It's just that the database no longer recognizes that fact.

So, I CAN recover from this. I can open each folder and re-import the book. It creates a new entry that has none of the metadata I typed in, which frequently included title changes, tags and assorted other stuff. Then I have to delete the original. And all the while, I wonder if I'm clobbering stuff by importing FROM the actual Calibre assigned data folder TO it again. But I think that's better than reverting.

Am I right? Or is there a better way to suck the actual existing formats back into calibre and have it update the current entry with all of its attendant metadata?

Thanks in advance, GM

[pchrist7]

Hi Gary

Aaah, bummer !
I still have to do that one ( I HOPE NOT !! ) but I've done so many stupid things in calibre.

First of all:
MAKE A Backup, RIGHT NOW, SIR !!!

Now: I have a small test Calibre library and I tried the following:
1. Delete a book, within calibre library view naturally.
2. Calibre still open, choose windows wastebasket, restore folder
3. In Calibre choose Library Maintenance, and then Restore Database

Pauw, as far as I can see my deleted book returned in that Library, with the correct metadata ( saved in *.opf files for each book )

I DON'T KNOW if this CAN help you in any way !!
As far as I remember, the above depends on the books files, including the opf file, is there for all the books.

You might want to give it a try.
If you still have issues, I think you'll have to wait for the gurues to pitch in.

GOOD LUCK !!
Cheers, per

[kovidgoyal]

Backup your metadata.db file, then use the calibre restore library option (right click the calibre icon, then library maintenance->restore library) this will rebuild the db from the book files and metadata backups.

[Gary_M_Mugford]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Backup your metadata.db file, then use the calibre restore library option (right click the calibre icon, then library maintenance->restore library) this will rebuild the db from the book files and metadata backups.

Kovid (and PChrist),

I followed the instructions. The initial attempt failed. While STILL in the calibre session that went awry, I ran my backup batchfile (which copies the metadata.db to a cascading set of backups (i.e. metadata.db1, metadata.db2 ... thru metadata.db7). Then I ran the restore library and it froze at the first step after 2 per cent. I finally closed it externally when it was obvious the not 'responding' message wasn't going away.

I then re-ran the batch file to create another cascading backup. I re-started calibre and ran the restore library. Once it got past the 2 per cent mark, I went off to supper. It was finished when I got back, but there were issues. A bunch of issues as it turns out. But they were largely in earlier versions of articles and I finally decided I could do without the earlier revisions and opted to just close out the log and be done with the recovery process.

Unfortunately, a series of issues/nits DID arise after the recovery. My column order was defaulted back to the original calibre layout. I lost my plugin board for saving to the Kindle. And the colouring rules were gone. I'm not sure, but I think I USED to have only the current in-use extra columns I created AND that showed up in the details view area, but after the repair, all of the fields show up in the one-screen editor. Not a major issue, but I'd like to get back to the sparser editing screen if there is a setting I missed re-setting during this whole process.

Having documented my plug-in board, restoring that was no issue and I put in a bunch of new colour rules that were just a bit smarter this time around. So I gained something through all of this. (Did fail in trying to create a rule for Size > 0.3 to indicate short stories and small articles, but that's a different question for a different forum here)

And I made a complete backup of the WHOLE system before going about deleting the un-needed formats, CORRECTLY, this time around. Then I zipped up the library onto DVDs. The pruning represented almost a seven percent savings in space from the last external backup and I had added some 400 books and articles in the meantime.

Thanks to both of you for helping this addled user get around this bit of un-needed holiday stress.

Best of the season to you and yours, Happy Holidays!!
GM

[kovidgoyal]

Doing a restore loses things like column order/coloring/etc. as those are not backed up.