PRS-300 Collections - what the what?!

[luthier58]

I admit I'm a newbie. I had very carefully organized my 80 or so books into collections using the Sony software. Today, because I happened to be in a different location but had the opportunity, I downloaded/connected to both the Sony store and Calibre, and noticed that my carefully-crafted collections had been totally corrupted with 30 new collections, from...somewhere. I could probably dig through documentation to find this answer, but I figure you folks could probably tell me immediately how to prevent this in future.

Thanks
luthier58

[MSJim]

Do you mean to say you were running Calibre and Sony software simultaneously? That's not a good idea. I generally avoid this problem by not running Sony's program at all.

I can't explain where the extra collections came from, it's never happened to me. However, it shouldn't be too hard to straighten out with Calibre. You could edit the metadata for each book, but I think it's be easier to directly edit the contents of the "Tags" and "Series" fields in the library mode. Just double click on the field and delete the extra values, or replace them/it with one of your choosing. Leaving one of these fields blank removes the book from the collection named for the value in the field.

[luthier58]

No, I wasn't running both simultaneously (I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid). I used Calibre to import some .txt files (and reformat to ePub), and write them to the reader. Then I opened the reader software to assign them to collections (this had worked well before). I had previously set up the collections in the sony software, and the Calibre tags seemed to have no effect, at least at that time. Note that the new files had no tags at all. I opened the sony software to assign the new files to collections, and discovered all the new collections, with all my previous books assigned to new and different collections. I just spent most of the evening deleting the new collections and reassigning books to my preferred collections, and would really prefer to NOT have to do this again. Can I tell Calibre and/or Sony to ignore any tags, and NOT create new collections on the reader?

[Mike_73]

I was asked if I wanted to install a new Library update this week when I used the program. I opted for no as I usually only use the program for organizing my collections. Maybe Sony thought they have to put some collections no one wants on the readers with the update?

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by luthier58

I admit I'm a newbie. I had very carefully organized my 80 or so books into collections using the Sony software. Today, because I happened to be in a different location but had the opportunity, I downloaded/connected to both the Sony store and Calibre, and noticed that my carefully-crafted collections had been totally corrupted with 30 new collections, from...somewhere. I could probably dig through documentation to find this answer, but I figure you folks could probably tell me immediately how to prevent this in future.

Those collections were created by Calibre when you transferred books to your reader. By default Calibre will convert any tags or series associated with a book into a collection when that book is transferred to the device. Since you have tags and/or series associated with the books, collections were created.

What I'm saying is, without realizing it, you were the source of the 30 new collections.

You can prevent this in the future by just using one or the other software package to manage all of your books. If you insist on using both you can prevent calibre from creating collections on your device with the following.

In calibre go to Preferences - Plugins - Device interface plugins - Sony device interface - customize. See image attached. In the image I attached collections are created via Author_sort which means last name, first name. The window you just opened by default says tags, series delete these and calibre will never create collection on your device again.

If you choose to use calibre to manage your books you might want to limit what tags calibre automatically downloads from Amazon etc... (which is how your tags were most likely added to each book).

In calibre go to Preferences - Metadata download plugins and customize each of the three plugins by unchecking download tags. This way the only tags or series added to a book will be tags or series that make sense to you.

I hope this info helps.

[KayakerNC]

Originally Posted by luthier58

No, I wasn't running both simultaneously (I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid). I used Calibre to import some .txt files (and reformat to ePub), and write them to the reader. Then I opened the reader software to assign them to collections (this had worked well before). I had previously set up the collections in the sony software, and the Calibre tags seemed to have no effect, at least at that time. Note that the new files had no tags at all. I opened the sony software to assign the new files to collections, and discovered all the new collections, with all my previous books assigned to new and different collections. I just spent most of the evening deleting the new collections and reassigning books to my preferred collections, and would really prefer to NOT have to do this again. Can I tell Calibre and/or Sony to ignore any tags, and NOT create new collections on the reader?

Yep, the same thing happened to me yesterday, all my collections were gone...replaced by a TON of new collections.
Rebuilding is not fun.
I did the delete thing in the Calibre preferences...hopefully this won't happen again.

[dorino]

My reader's collections looks like my bedroom. Once in awhile, it may be clean, but it'll slowly clutter up beyond belief over time. I need to do laundry.

I really don't use collections for anything but series. The rest of my 40-odd collections are garbage...

[blues36]

Thanks for posting the answer to this. I am another user who lost all of their saved collections. I created them using Calibre as well and I will have to recreate them. :-\

Shouldn't it be default not to overwrite users collections?

Mind you, Calibre is awesome, but I won't enjoy rebuilding my collections. I have over 700 books on my PRS900 and the collections help sort through the mess.

Also, when I am using Calibre to edit a book's collection description on the Reader, or the Card, I double-click and cannot edit it. This feature worked well on the previous version. Is this a bug that needs to be worked out?

[luthier58]

Thanks, Dwanthny, that's just what I needed. Although I'm curious, I've used Calibre on 2 other computers without the new collections being created, it just happened when I installed Calibre on this particular computer and added some new files (existing books aren't even on this computer). Odd, but I'll take your advice on ALL my computers.

Thank,
luthier58

[KayakerNC]

Damn!!
Did it again.
Odd that only 4 books are involved in the new collections, all 4 downloaded from Smashwords.
I'm getting better at re-creating my collections. Practice, I guess.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by luthier58

Thanks, Dwanthny, that's just what I needed. Although I'm curious, I've used Calibre on 2 other computers without the new collections being created, it just happened when I installed Calibre on this particular computer and added some new files (existing books aren't even on this computer). Odd, but I'll take your advice on ALL my computers.

I believe this is a function of 0.7.1 the first time you connect. Calibre looks for and updates any metadata of books on the device and in calibre. So any tags would be sent into collections at that time.

All of my tags and series in calibre match what is on my device so I haven't experienced this. I read Kovid was coming out with something that addressed this situation in 0.7.2 but I'm unsure how.

Hang in there to the next version and see how it works.