Book with no EPUB download option

[Sharkus]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Yes, it appears something got really messed up with this book. Thanks for your help. I'm not sure it's worth the hassle of my time in dealing with customer support.

More than happy to help. Personally I would be talking to CS, mentioning this thread, and that there is something odd with the book. I know what *I* would do to try and fix the problem, if I had the access to do so, which is to grab the ID of the current book, remove it from your account, check it's removed, then add it back in and check it appears as a fully purchased book. You could always ask that they try that.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Sharkus

If it's a fully purchased book and not appearing as one, either on the website or within the iOS app, that's a different matter, and something worth talking to Customer Care about.

Oh, we've tried. Believe me, we've tried.

CC is clueless on the matter, and Kobo does not appear to take the problem seriously. I've been outright lied to on the matter on more than one occasion.

[sonofthe]

I just bought a book published by Tor from Kobo and they provide no download link in my library section of the website. There was one other story from Tor (actually Tor.com) which had the same problem. It's frustrating and confusing because Tor and Tor.com books/stories all say "At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied" at the end of the product description. Other books/stories from Tor[.com] have a non-DRM epub download link.

I haven't contacted Kobo about this week's purchase, but I did with the previous one. They gave me the run-around and ended up lying to me. With that phrase in the description, this is a case of false advertising.

The problem is, I like purchasing through Kobo because it's the only ebookstore where my money will also support my local brick-and-mortar bookstore.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by sonofthe

I just bought a book published by Tor from Kobo and they provide no download link in my library section of the website. There was one other story from Tor (actually Tor.com) which had the same problem. It's frustrating and confusing because Tor and Tor.com books/stories all say "At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied" at the end of the product description. Other books/stories from Tor[.com] have a non-DRM epub download link.

I haven't contacted Kobo about this week's purchase, but I did with the previous one. They gave me the run-around and ended up lying to me. With that phrase in the description, this is a case of false advertising.

Sorry, but if you actually look at the file that is downloaded to a Kobo device or using the Kobo desktop application, you will find it doesn't have any DRM. The fact that it is in a format you are not used to, doesn't mean it automatically has DRM. I have checked this on a few books that I have bought from Kobo that had this statement. All of them had no DRM.

[DNSB]

Sheeshh... this is about the fourth or fifth time I've had a submit generate two posts.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by sonofthe

I just bought a book published by Tor from Kobo and they provide no download link in my library section of the website. There was one other story from Tor (actually Tor.com) which had the same problem. It's frustrating and confusing because Tor and Tor.com books/stories all say "At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied" at the end of the product description. Other books/stories from Tor[.com] have a non-DRM epub download link.

I haven't contacted Kobo about this week's purchase, but I did with the previous one. They gave me the run-around and ended up lying to me. With that phrase in the description, this is a case of false advertising.

The problem is, I like purchasing through Kobo because it's the only ebookstore where my money will also support my local brick-and-mortar bookstore.

This was discussed to death a while back regarding John Scalzi's Lock In. The book claims to be an epub3 not an epub2 ebook (content.opf version is set to 3.0). Given that epub3 ebooks can range from displaying without issue using an epub2 renderer to looking like total crap, Kobo is playing it safe by not making epub3 ebooks available as epub with a direct download link -- the ACCESS renderer used by Kobo's kepubs is epub3 compliant (kind of) while the Adobe RMSDK renderer used for epub2 ebooks is not. However, the ebook was not protected by DRM.

If you are using the Kobo desktop under Windows, you will find the downloaded ebooks in the %APPDATA%\Local\Kobo\Kobo Desktop Edition\kepub folder, on a Mac, they live off the library folder. The file name will look like, and probably is, a GUID with no extension (e.g. 4514114c-8f83-4805-bb97-0d96c9d8645e). You can copy the files to another location, add a .epub to the filename and then try to open it with your favourite epub reader. If it is not DRMed, it will open and you can try reading it. A couple of cookbooks I've purchased looked like crud when I tried this since they were fixed layout epub3 ebooks but there was no DRM in use. Lock In looked fine and when I opened it with Sigil, it had both the epub3 toc.xhtml table of contents and the epub2 toc.ncx file.

To put it simply, you may not be able to download an epub3 ebook as an epub2 ebook but that is not the same as the ebook being protected by DRM.

I would suggest that you probably owe Kobo's CS an apology for your intemperate comments.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by vice-versa

I tried to buy yesterday this book : "La cuisine c'est aussi de la chimie" from Arthur Le Caisne, ISBN :9782012310568.
I can see it in my library on their website, but neither their kobo desktop app neither my reader can sync it : it just doesn't show anywhere and there is no download button facing it in my library on their website.

I looked at that book and it does not appear to be readable by their ereaders. The Kobo app seems to be required to read it (the Windows icon refers to the Kobo reader app running under Windows 8 or 8.1) and not to the Kobo desktop application -- there is no Desktop or eReaders icon visible.

[sonofthe]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Sorry, but if you actually look at the file that is downloaded to a Kobo device or using the Kobo desktop application, you will find it doesn't have any DRM. The fact that it is in a format you are not used to, doesn't mean it automatically has DRM. I have checked this on a few books that I have bought from Kobo that had this statement. All of them had no DRM.

Thank you, davidfor and DNSB. I found the files and loaded them into my giant ebook collection. I'm still confused with Kobo, though. They provide download links for some of the books from those publishers, but not others. I don't get it.

Along the way, I also found the oboK plugin. So helpful! Unfortunately, I had already done a lot of the work the hard way. In the future, though...

[sonofthe]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I would suggest that you probably owe Kobo's CS an apology for your intemperate comments.

Thanks again for the help finding the file locations. As far as the apology, though, I don't think I have anything to apologize for. After a number of emails back and forth, all civil and patient, the folks at Kobo still never answered my questions and still lied to me in the end.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by sonofthe

Thank you, davidfor and DNSB. I found the files and loaded them into my giant ebook collection. I'm still confused with Kobo, though. They provide download links for some of the books from those publishers, but not others. I don't get it.

Basically, any file that identifies itself as an epub3 will not have a download option since Kobo can not be certain that the book will display properly using Adobe's code without having someone actually read the book on ADE/RMSDK to make that determination. That would translate in $$$ being spent.

I purchased an ebook last weekend (gotta love those discount codes) which had no download option. Since the ebook was not DRMed, I located the kepub and used Sigil to open it so I could take a look through it. It had version 3.0 in the content.opf and a toc.xhtml epub3 navigation document. Other than that, it was an epub2 file. No fixed layout, no MathML, no embedded audio/video, nothing that made it worth calling an epub3.