Multiple book entries in library

[rainio]

Hello,
a question:

I've copied over some books onto a glo using calibre, but I think as it copies over the epub and jpg and another file the glo thinks there are 3 copies of the book.
I removed everything but the epub but the entries remain in the library, and when one of these is selected either it says it is adobe DRMd or there's a blank book.
Is there a way to reset the library without deleting the books?
I hope I don't have to sift through 300 "books" to delete 2/3 of the incorrect entries.
(I'll do a factory reset in the meantime.)

Thanks.

[Droid]

Don't delete anything! I have a solution, but it will take some time to type on my iPad. I will edit this message in a few minutes with the proper reply. Just thought I would make a quick note so you don't go doing anything unnecessarily!

Edit: calibre copies over the book (.epub, if you try copying a .mobi it will appear as a book, but won't open and will appear "empty" with no cover) along with a .jpg of the cover and a metadata file. Just delete the .jpg, since the kobo thinks that it is a normal photo, not a book cover. I used a command in Linux to recursively delete everything .jpg from the directory on my ereader, but as you likely have Windows, you must find some way to do it. Don't bother removing the metadata files, Kobo doesn't pay attention to them, I don't think.

Now you will have a bunch of stuff that doesn't exist in your library. To get this back to normal, try syncing it again. It will rescan your kobo and remove the jpg images since they no longer exist.

I don't know why you have three copies. Calibre just gave me 2. Maybe you tried this twice without syncing? Anyway, AI think that everything will be back to normal when you do this. Oh, maybe you have a .epub and .mobi version of the book, along with the .jpg? Remove all of the .mobi, since it is the Kindle format (and used to be compatible with Kobo Touch, at least with older firmware, I believe). Mobi is no longer compatible with Kobo. No big loss, since ePub is the standard!

[rainio]

Ooops. Didn't have the patience and wanted to read before bed...
What would be your solution if it reoccurs?

[Droid]

As mentioned, just remove the .jpg and .mobi files and rescan (sync). It corrected my "library". This will not be a problem once Calibre supports the Glo.

[davidfor]

I assume you are doing a "Save to disk" to get the book on the Glo. If so, go into the preferences for "Saving books to disk" and deselect "Save cover separately" and "Save metadata in OPF" file. Then, when you do the save to disk, it will only write the book file.

As to cleaning up the mess, I'd probably just delete everything and start again.

Of course, if you wait until tomorrow afternoon sometime (Sydney, Australia time), the calibre update will include a new driver that handles the Touch, Glo and Mini.

[rainio]

Thanks for your help.
You're right, I didn't sync afterwards: I thought sync'ing was to sync to a central kobo website to provide reading data or something like that.

Thanks!

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by rainio

You're right, I didn't sync afterwards: I thought sync'ing was to sync to a central kobo website to provide reading data or something like that.

That is what it does, but one of the things it also does is a cleanup of the database. This is because deleting a book doesn't completely remove things from the database on the device, it marks them as deleted. Then, during the sync, it can check if that record needs to be updated in or removed from the central store and then removed from the device. The reason to do this is if you do a factory reset, Kobo will know that the missing records are accidental rather than deliberate.