Amazon auto update fighting with Calibre books

Solarin · 01-25-2016, 08:38 PM

So like many people, I use calibre to change the title and cover image of my amazon ebooks. The issue is that I also have the auto-update function turned on. It seems that even after stripping the DRM off the books and changing the title, Amazon is still able to tell it's their book and thus will push updates to it. Normally I'd be happy with that, but today something weird happened.

I turned the Wifi on and Amazon updated the 2nd Game of Thrones book (A Clash of Kings). I had the title changed a certain way with calibre so it'd be in series order, and the cover image was also changed. Upon being updated, it reverted back to the original title and cover image. So I connected via USB, took the new updated book, put it into calibre, changed the metadata again, and put the new calibre-changed one in. Then I turned Wifi off.

Now, just a few hours later, I turned the wifi back on... and my kindle once again changed the book's title and cover image to the original. I doubt there was another update to the book, but it was changed anyway. So I repeated everything in the above paragraph, and put it back on the kindle. Then, just to test things, I turned the Wifi on again. As you can probably guess, Amazon once again changed the book's data.

But wait! The mystery deepens. I tried turning auto update off, tested it again, and it STILL happened! Arghhhhh.

I have bought dozens of books from Amazon and have used calibre to change the metadata of most of them. But, they have all been untouched for now. For some reason, Amazon really doesn't like my A Clash of Kings cover.

This is such a trivial thing but it's driving me crazy! Should I just always keep Wifi off?

eschwartz · 01-25-2016, 09:30 PM

Does this happen with any other books?

Can you open the ebook with the calibre E-Book Viewer, and check what the reported cover/title is? This will help determine if the ebook file itself is being replaced.

It seems Amazon will now "helpfully" update the cover thumbnail used in Cover View, see: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=262285
(You can get around that by copying the calibre-generated covers, letting the Kindle do its stupid thing, then copying back your covers).

I don't think I've seen the title being munged though.

...

An easy way to fix the whole mess would be to modify the ASIN in each book to not match Amazon's servers.

Solarin · 01-25-2016, 09:43 PM

Thanks for the reply. The cover inside the book is different from the one amazon keeps changing it to.

It only happens with one other book, Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan. I didn't change the cover image, but I did change the title. Sometimes when reconnecting to Wifi, Amazon will "fix" the title and also randomly place it out of the collection I placed it in on my kindle.

Oh, I didn't realize a fix would be that simple. I assume I change the ASIN in the "Ids" section of the metadata menu, correct?

eschwartz · 01-25-2016, 09:50 PM

Actually, it needs to be embedded in the exth 113 field -- inside the Palm headers of the ebook.

The Quality Check plugin has an option to "Fix ASIN for Kindle Fire", and is often used to embed fake ASINs, in order to change a "Personal" document (darn that stupid banner to heck

) into a "real" book (whatever Amazon thinks that is

).

I think it can also be used to reset the existing ASIN (but I don't remember if it is optimized to not bother when there is already an embedded ASIN).

...

What that does, is make Amazon no longer know that the book came from them. It is a bit of a brute fix -- my curiosity would rather know what was wrong in the first place!

Solarin · 01-25-2016, 09:56 PM

Yeah, I'm curious as well. I guess it's not a huge deal since I do prefer to load all my books through calibre, so I don't really need to ever connect to wifi. But, the automatic updates are nice, you know, when they don't screw up my lovely cover images.

Thanks for the info about changing the ASIN, I'll try that out.

HarryT · 01-26-2016, 02:51 AM

What I do personally is to have all books sent to Kindle for PC. From there, I load them into Calibre and send them to my Kindle. That way, the updates also get sent to K4PC.

badgoodDeb · 01-26-2016, 01:18 PM

Eschwartz -- this sounds a bit like the issue I mentioned (at the end of somebody else's thread). You commented there, so you've read it. I said that I couldn't change the title of a book (to insert series and #) because the cloud connection seemed to disagree with the book's name, and turned it into a "ghost book". Present maybe, but not visible.

If you want to make that set of comments into a separate thread (or a part of this thread) that's fine with me.

eschwartz · 01-26-2016, 01:31 PM

That's right -- I remember your issue now. (HERE)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solarin

Amazon will "fix" the title and also randomly place it out of the collection I placed it in on my kindle.

Solarin -- which view did you see the book in?

As I stated in the other thread, I have seen books in collections, get their titles changed and end up invisible in collections view.
This is going back to my Kindle Touch, no Cloud Collections.

badgoodDeb · 01-26-2016, 01:42 PM

Ahh, I didn't catch that subtlety - that perhaps the book would have been visible outside of "collections view". I never leave "collections view" because I tend to 'lose' the books that I want to keep track of, that way.

I did LOOK for my books, both inside and outside of the collection. The books weren't merely removed from the collection, because they didn't show up outside of the collection either. But I didn't turn off "collections view".

Solarin · 01-26-2016, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eschwartz

That's right -- I remember your issue now. (HERE)

Solarin -- which view did you see the book in?

As I stated in the other thread, I have seen books in collections, get their titles changed and end up invisible in collections view.
This is going back to my Kindle Touch, no Cloud Collections.

It was either invisible or out of the collection in collections view. The book was still accessible through search, I didn't try to leave collections view to look for it when invisible. Eventually I just turned Wifi off, used calibre to remove and then re-add the book and it was fine.

When not invisible, it would just show up on my kindle home page out of the collection. Upon clicking on the book, the kindle showed that it was set to be in a certain collection. This has also happened with several non-Amazon ebooks, always at the same time as the one Amazon ebook that always moved around.

It's also always the same books that get moved around. My Amazon one is Theft of Swords by Michael Sullivan, and it drags around several Kurt Vonnegut books (again, not from Amazon). Very strange, probably just a glitch with the OS.

@HarryT, thanks for the tip! I'll try that out.

01-25-2016, 08:38 PM	#1
Solarin Member Posts: 23 Karma: 10010 Join Date: Jan 2016 Device: Kindle Voyage	Amazon auto update fighting with Calibre books So like many people, I use calibre to change the title and cover image of my amazon ebooks. The issue is that I also have the auto-update function turned on. It seems that even after stripping the DRM off the books and changing the title, Amazon is still able to tell it's their book and thus will push updates to it. Normally I'd be happy with that, but today something weird happened. I turned the Wifi on and Amazon updated the 2nd Game of Thrones book (A Clash of Kings). I had the title changed a certain way with calibre so it'd be in series order, and the cover image was also changed. Upon being updated, it reverted back to the original title and cover image. So I connected via USB, took the new updated book, put it into calibre, changed the metadata again, and put the new calibre-changed one in. Then I turned Wifi off. Now, just a few hours later, I turned the wifi back on... and my kindle once again changed the book's title and cover image to the original. I doubt there was another update to the book, but it was changed anyway. So I repeated everything in the above paragraph, and put it back on the kindle. Then, just to test things, I turned the Wifi on again. As you can probably guess, Amazon once again changed the book's data. But wait! The mystery deepens. I tried turning auto update off, tested it again, and it STILL happened! Arghhhhh. I have bought dozens of books from Amazon and have used calibre to change the metadata of most of them. But, they have all been untouched for now. For some reason, Amazon really doesn't like my A Clash of Kings cover. This is such a trivial thing but it's driving me crazy! Should I just always keep Wifi off? Last edited by Solarin; 01-25-2016 at 08:42 PM.

01-26-2016, 01:42 PM	#9
badgoodDeb Grand Sorcerer Posts: 8,501 Karma: 64095689 Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Harrisburg outskirts Device: Palms, K1-4s, iPads, iPhones, KV, KO1	Ahh, I didn't catch that subtlety - that perhaps the book would have been visible outside of "collections view". I never leave "collections view" because I tend to 'lose' the books that I want to keep track of, that way. I did LOOK for my books, both inside and outside of the collection. The books weren't merely removed from the collection, because they didn't show up outside of the collection either. But I didn't turn off "collections view". Last edited by badgoodDeb; 01-26-2016 at 01:46 PM.

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01-25-2016, 09:30 PM	#2
eschwartz Ex-Helpdesk Junkie Posts: 19,422 Karma: 85397180 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)	Does this happen with any other books? Can you open the ebook with the calibre E-Book Viewer, and check what the reported cover/title is? This will help determine if the ebook file itself is being replaced. It seems Amazon will now "helpfully" update the cover thumbnail used in Cover View, see: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=262285 (You can get around that by copying the calibre-generated covers, letting the Kindle do its stupid thing, then copying back your covers). I don't think I've seen the title being munged though. ... An easy way to fix the whole mess would be to modify the ASIN in each book to not match Amazon's servers.

01-25-2016, 09:43 PM	#3
Solarin Member Posts: 23 Karma: 10010 Join Date: Jan 2016 Device: Kindle Voyage	Thanks for the reply. The cover inside the book is different from the one amazon keeps changing it to. It only happens with one other book, Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan. I didn't change the cover image, but I did change the title. Sometimes when reconnecting to Wifi, Amazon will "fix" the title and also randomly place it out of the collection I placed it in on my kindle. Oh, I didn't realize a fix would be that simple. I assume I change the ASIN in the "Ids" section of the metadata menu, correct?

01-25-2016, 09:50 PM	#4
eschwartz Ex-Helpdesk Junkie Posts: 19,422 Karma: 85397180 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: The Beaten Path, USA, Roundworld, This Side of Infinity Device: Kindle Touch fw5.3.7 (Wifi only)	Actually, it needs to be embedded in the exth 113 field -- inside the Palm headers of the ebook. The Quality Check plugin has an option to "Fix ASIN for Kindle Fire", and is often used to embed fake ASINs, in order to change a "Personal" document (darn that stupid banner to heck ) into a "real" book (whatever Amazon thinks that is ). I think it can also be used to reset the existing ASIN (but I don't remember if it is optimized to not bother when there is already an embedded ASIN). ... What that does, is make Amazon no longer know that the book came from them. It is a bit of a brute fix -- my curiosity would rather know what was wrong in the first place!

01-25-2016, 09:56 PM	#5
Solarin Member Posts: 23 Karma: 10010 Join Date: Jan 2016 Device: Kindle Voyage	Yeah, I'm curious as well. I guess it's not a huge deal since I do prefer to load all my books through calibre, so I don't really need to ever connect to wifi. But, the automatic updates are nice, you know, when they don't screw up my lovely cover images. Thanks for the info about changing the ASIN, I'll try that out.

01-26-2016, 02:51 AM	#6
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	What I do personally is to have all books sent to Kindle for PC. From there, I load them into Calibre and send them to my Kindle. That way, the updates also get sent to K4PC.

01-26-2016, 01:18 PM	#7
badgoodDeb Grand Sorcerer Posts: 8,501 Karma: 64095689 Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Harrisburg outskirts Device: Palms, K1-4s, iPads, iPhones, KV, KO1	Eschwartz -- this sounds a bit like the issue I mentioned (at the end of somebody else's thread). You commented there, so you've read it. I said that I couldn't change the title of a book (to insert series and #) because the cloud connection seemed to disagree with the book's name, and turned it into a "ghost book". Present maybe, but not visible. If you want to make that set of comments into a separate thread (or a part of this thread) that's fine with me.