Need help! Update to 2.9 screwed up my library.

[Diaboyos]

OK I don't know what's going on here. For the past dozen or so versions of Calibre everything has worked great then I update to 2.9 and now 2.10 and my library is all messed up. Luckily I had a backup in case something like this happened.

Before 2.9 I had 37,863 eBooks. After 2.9 I have 14,163 eBooks. And all of the metadata is gone. All the Series info, tags, identifiers, rating, publisher everything. The only thing that has anything in it is Authors and Formats. I am using the backup library folder which has everything in it correct to add books back into Calibre.

The backup folder which I am using to add books back into Calibre has 5189 author folders containing 42,577 files which came out to 37,863 eBooks.

After using the backup folder to add books to Calibre the new Calibre folder contains 5935 author folders containing 28,110 files which came out to 14,163 eBooks.

What happened to the rest of my eBooks? Why are there like 800 more author folders? Why has all the metadata been stripped?

I'm using the Add books from directories, including subs, multiple books per directory option. That's always worked for me in the past but it's not now.

Everything is correct in my backup folder. Author names are Last Name, First Name, every book has a Series assigned to it and it's number within the series. It took an extremely long time to do this for 37k books and for it now to all just be gone is heartbreaking.

Is there a way to just get Calibre to use the backup folder as the new folder? No renaming back to First Name, Last Name. No adding of an additional 800 author folders that I have no clue where they came from and to include the metadata that I hope is still present in the backup folder? I don't know where the metadata is stored when it's changed from within Calibre but I hope it's still there somewhere.

I just want Calibre to use the backup folder as-is. I don't want anything changed it's set up exactly how I want it. Author's names are Last Name, First Name and I want it to include back the metadata and the rest of the eBooks? Is this possible?

[theducks]

Before doing such a radical restoration attempt, you really should ASK before you make a (possible) simple issue into a Major OMG

A 'additional Filter' might have been in place (if you see a Red Minus near the search bar) or you were viewing a VL tab

Kind of late to troubleshoot.


BTW I have done 100's of updates since 2010. Things have gone south before (I also sometimes run betas).

BUT

My Library has never been destroyed without my help
Usually, clearing a corrupted configuration or Reverting to the prior version makes it good again.

[eschwartz]

You can copy your backup folder to the original library location (I assume it has a metadata.db?). Do not move, that defeats the purpose of backup.

Ordinarily I'd recommend using Check Library and Restore Database. That plan has been shot to pieces.

[Diaboyos]

Originally Posted by theducks

Kind of late to troubleshoot.

Reverting to the prior version makes it good again.

It shouldn't be too late to troubleshoot. I have an exact copy of the Calibre library folder from before this happened and all I'm trying to do is get it back into Calibre. For some reason though Calibre leaves out about 20k ebooks when I try to add them from the backup folder.

I've tried reverting back to previous versions. Several previous versions. They all did the same thing. When I add the books from the backup folder about 20k books don't get added.

If the metadata is lost then I guess it's just lost but why won't it add all these books that I'm trying to add? They've all been added successfully before. The format is either mobi, epub or pdf.

Is there any settings that would prevent it from adding them?

[Diaboyos]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

You can copy your backup folder to the original library location (I assume it has a metadata.db?). Do not move, that defeats the purpose of backup.

I've done this but when I started up Calibre it didn't see any books. Is there something I need to do within Calibre after I've copied over all the files in order for Calibre to see them?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Diaboyos

I've done this but when I started up Calibre it didn't see any books. Is there something I need to do within Calibre after I've copied over all the files in order for Calibre to see them?

If it is truly a copy of the library, the database should be there -- a copy of the old, working database. That is all calibre needs or wants. It should restore you to exactly whatever calibre saw at the time the backup was made.

Can you confirm that there is indeed a metadata.db in the root folder of the backup?

TBH, this is confusing me a TON.

Can you post a screenshot of calibre?

[Diaboyos]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

If it is truly a copy of the library, the database should be there -- a copy of the old, working database. That is all calibre needs or wants. It should restore you to exactly whatever calibre saw at the time the backup was made.

Can you confirm that there is indeed a metadata.db in the root folder of the backup?

TBH, this is confusing me a TON.

Can you post a screenshot of calibre?

Yes my backup library has a metadata.db file that was backed up when the library was backed up. It also has a metadata_db_prefs_backup.json file if that's needed.

I've copied the backup files to the Calibre library folder but Calibre didn't see any books. I think I need to refresh or recheck the library or something to let Calibre know that books have been added since I didn't use the Add Book feature I just copied files to the library folder. Unfortunately I don't know how to do that.

There's nothing to take a screen of right now there's zero books in Calibre. I'm gonna copy back over the backup files to the Calibre library folder tonight and look for a way to get Calibre to see that books have been added.

[eschwartz]

This might help: http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq....libre-is-blank

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Diaboyos

I've copied the backup files to the Calibre library folder but Calibre didn't see any books. I think I need to refresh or recheck the library or something to let Calibre know that books have been added since I didn't use the Add Book feature I just copied files to the library folder. Unfortunately I don't know how to do that.

No where in your first post did you copy the backup files to the calibre library. Just follow the info in the link eschwartz provided and you should be fine. The calibre update did not touch your library in any way shape or form. After you restore from backup you might want to investigate what happened.

Originally Posted by Diaboyos

OK I don't know what's going on here. For the past dozen or so versions of Calibre everything has worked great then I update to 2.9 and now 2.10 and my library is all messed up. Luckily I had a backup in case something like this happened.

Good job having a backup, folks can learn from your example.

Originally Posted by Diaboyos

Before 2.9 I had 37,863 eBooks. After 2.9 I have 14,163 eBooks. And all of the metadata is gone. All the Series info, tags, identifiers, rating, publisher everything. The only thing that has anything in it is Authors and Formats. I am using the backup library folder which has everything in it correct to add books back into Calibre.

Simply updating calibre does not effect the library at all. Something else happened here.

Originally Posted by Diaboyos

The backup folder which I am using to add books back into Calibre has 5189 author folders containing 42,577 files which came out to 37,863 eBooks.

After using the backup folder to add books to Calibre the new Calibre folder contains 5935 author folders containing 28,110 files which came out to 14,163 eBooks.

What happened to the rest of my eBooks? Why are there like 800 more author folders? Why has all the metadata been stripped?

I'm using the Add books from directories, including subs, multiple books per directory option. That's always worked for me in the past but it's not now.

If you had a true backup then why are you adding books back to calibre. Either delete the original library and copy the backup into the original location on simply switch libraries (library icon) to the backup directory.

Originally Posted by Diaboyos

Everything is correct in my backup folder. Author names are Last Name, First Name, every book has a Series assigned to it and it's number within the series. It took an extremely long time to do this for 37k books and for it now to all just be gone is heartbreaking.

If you have a backup, point calibre to to your backup via the library icon (Switch/create library feature).

Hopefully you have figured out your library by now. If it happens again don't do major surgery on it until you understand your simple options.

Now you need to figure out how your metadata.db file got altered. That file contains all of the info that you see in calibre, titles, authors, series etc... Do you have your library on a network drive? Is it located in a live sync cloud area like Dropbox, Copy or other auto sync solution?

Good Luck.