Not all .mobi books showing in Format column

[Alcohol]

Hi

I'm usiing Calibre 9.12 (64 bit) on Windows 7 (64 bit)and I'm hoping someone can help with a problem I'm having...

I've always sucessfully used Calibre to look after my .epub files but being the lucky recipient of a new Kindle Fire I need to now manage .mobi books too

I've added my base collection to the library and most of the .mobi files I have show up perfectly well - however not all show as a 'format' in the format column

I have no problem opening them from my books folder but in Calibre they show as 'xxxx has no available formats'

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks guys!

[kovidgoyal]

Right click the calibre icon on the toolabr and run the library check, it will tell you which files calibre has lost track of.

[Alcohol]

Thanks Kovi.
Unfortunately Library Check does not show any problems.
BTW I should have mentioned that the other .mobi books show up fine (I know my attached picture shows only .epub books but that's just because I sorted them in that order).
I've also looked at the individual metadata in some cases. I notice that I've got an 'add format' button somewhere in there (top right iirc) but I've not used this before and don't really understand where it takes me...
Just wondering if I should just add 3 books to a new library - i.e a known good .epub, a known good .mobi and known 'bad' .mobi and try to figure out what's happening.
Thanks for trying to help and any other comments you might have would be appreciated. Regards. Allan

[theducks]

check the mobi files properties for grins. Look at the 'rights', owner... those kinds of things

[Alcohol]

First apologies to Kovid that I called you Kovi in the last post... And may take this chance to say Callibre is an amazing work - I can't imagine the hours you must have spent developing and supporting this... Thank you.

To theducks - I've tried looking at rights and owner with nothing obvious showing - but thanks for the suggestion.

Going back to Kovids suggestion to run the library check...
I re-ran the library check and got the same message (shown as attachment) i.e 'found no errors in Callibre library database' - however this time I went on to check that the 'files in your library match the information in your database'
This bought up the 'problems found' notification (again as attached) showing extra titles and extra authors...

This is where I'm getting stuck - if I've read the info in the Help to the right of the window correctly - after I check the boxes - pressing the 'fix' button will tell Callibre that the formats are really gone. This is not really what I want to do... (And if you notice from the attaced screen shot the 'fix' button is greyed out anyway - the only option is 'delete'). What I really want to do is tell Callibre that the formats are actually valid and please go off and re-check. Is this something I can do? Anyone have any thoughts on this? Do I need to delete the items without a format and try re-adding?

Thanks in advance for your help guys!

Allan

[goldilocks]

Pictures from your first post:

1st picture shows your library is called "Calibre Library"

2nd picture looks like you did a search for the ebook. The path does not contain "Calibre Library"

3rd picture is the Calibre? viewer. I assume that you opened the ebook from your search and you have your system set to use the Calibre viewer. I believe you can use it outside of Calibre.

I may be wrong (I am just a novice Calibre user myself) but it appears you may have moved your ebook out of the Calibre Library. If it was me, I would just go to Edit Metadata and in the upper right hand corner select "Add a format to this book" (red rectangle with +). Find your ebook and add it.

I am using Windows XP so your system may not show the same path info mine does.

[theducks]

The first check is purely a data structure valiate. (date in date fields, alpha-numeric in text, digits in numbers), it does not check that that data is correct.... That is the second part, compare what is stored to what is found.
Screen 3 is OMG what did you do to get that many data mismatches?

[itimpi]

One 'trick' that might help is to tell Calibre to Copy its library to another folder and then tell Calibre to delete the original library. The files left behind should be the 'extra' files that Calibre does not now know about. You can then work through these to see if they need re-adding to the a calibre library copy you have just made to end up with a library where the Calibre metadata database is consistent with the underlying files..

I would recommend that you make a copy of the existing Calibre library folder at the OS level before trying the above to protect yourself against accidents.

As was said earlier, the question arises as to why there is such a mismatch between the Calibre metadata database and the actual files in the first place?

[Alcohol]

Hi guys - thanks to you all for taking the time to reply!

Taking the comments in order:

- - -

Goldilocks... I'm relatively inexperienced using Calibre myself - not because I haven't used it much (I have) but because I've never needed to dig into the finer points of the program - it usually works so well!

Your observations on the first set of caps are quite right...

The first capture is indeed Calibre showing that believes that 'The Book Thief' has no available formats.

The second cap is of the original folder containing 'The Book Thief' confirming it a proper .mobi book.

The third cap (and you are right again) is the book correctly opening in the viewer.

Having (I hope) confirmed that I am doing nothing too daft, I am still left wondering why this among many other books - didn't import properly into Calibre?

BTW I took your suggestion and added the metadata manually via the 'add format to this book' button which corrected the problem as shown in the screen caps below.

- - -

TheDucks... Thanks - I now understand the 2 parts of the validate data check. It was the 'compare what is stored to what is found' that found so many data mismatches.

I can confirm that I have done nothing to the original source folder (i.e nothing changed, deleted or moved) since the original 'add books' (btw using the third option - multiple books per directory).

I'm as baffled as you... "Screen 3 is OMG what did you do to get that many data mismatches?" Honestly I have no idea - and that's why I joined this excellent forum!

- - -

Itimpi... (And btw do I recognise that nick in connection with Network services?)

Thanks for the suggestion about copy / delete and see what remains - I will try that over the wekend.

I was also considering just deleting the 'no available formats' books and then asking calibre to 'add books' again to see if it picks up the errors. Do you think this would work?

In any event I'll be sure to post the results.

- - -

Also guys I'm still unsure why the 'fix marked' button is greyed out...

[From Calibri] Fix marked is applicable only to covers and missing formats... In the case of missing formats checking the fixable box and pushing the button will tell calibre that the formats are really gone. Use this if you are not going to restore from a backup.

Thanks again y'all - the time you have spent answering my call for help is appreciated.

Alcohol (That's ALlan COmes from HOLYwell for those wondering if I have a drinking problem lol)

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Alcohol

I've added my base collection to the library and most of the .mobi files I have show up perfectly well - however not all show as a 'format' in the format column

I have no problem opening them from my books folder but in Calibre they show as 'xxxx has no available formats'

How did you add your base collection?

Originally Posted by theducks

Screen 3 is OMG what did you do to get that many data mismatches?

This often happens when grabbing up libraries from "friends" as a starting point.

@Alcohol the following should get you back up and running.

1. Start by exiting calibre (Ctrl-q).
2. Back-up the entire calibre library.
3. Once you are sure you have a complete backup go into the root of your active library and rename the metadata.db file to metadata.db.old.
4. Start calibre it should show you a library with no books in it.
5. Restore database by going to Library maintenance and selecting Restore database this should rebuild your database. This process will rebuild your metadata.db file based on the info in each metadata.opf files in the individual directories.
6. After the restore finishes your library should show your books again.
7. Recheck things, if you are worse off go back to your "old" metadata.db file or revert back to your backup copy of your library.

Good Luck.

[Alcohol]

Hi DoctorOhh - just checking my old posts and realised that I never did thank you for the detailed reply from er.. several years back It worked btw...

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Alcohol

Hi DoctorOhh - just checking my old posts and realised that I never did thank you for the detailed reply from er.. several years back It worked btw...

Glad to hear it.