Author sort not working consistently for "ln, fn"

[kiwidude]

I hope someone can help, I'm sure there must be a bug underlying this but I can't figure out the exact cause to report it for replication. Using 0.7.23.

I want my author for display and sorting purposes to be the same, and for it to simply be "ln, fn".

So for importing the books I use NIYOW to rename my source files into this author format since the filenames are currently "fn ln" and I see no way within Calibre to do this - a minor extra step but not my issue here.

In the tweaks dialog I changed the author_sort_copy_method to "copy" or "comma" - I've experimented with both but surely if whatever I type manually or import is correctly named already with a comma as "ln, fn" either setting should be fine, right? I restart Calibre after making a change.

The problem is that I am getting inconsistent behaviour when adding books to the library. After an initial subset import, I wanted the titles to be sorted purely alphabetically as per this thread:

I then tried the "option 3" listed of doing the bulk edit and checking the "Automatically set author sort" checkbox with nothing else on the entire library and clicking ok. It was alleged this would mean I would not have to manually edit each title that was incorrectly indexed. However not only did it not fix the titles, it utterly "trashed" my author sorting so every author sort was no longer "ln, fn". I no longer use this checkbox - ever!

I spent hours manually fixing this back up, then have been adding more books with different formats (some duplication of titles, have set the merge to automatic). I drag them in one author at a time - however it seems that for some authors that regardless of any settings in Calibre it decides it wants to not respect the "ln, fn" of the filename and instead fiddle with the author sort.

However the behaviour is not consistent. I'm sure I have seen it happen sometimes for completely new authors, and other times when a merge is required for some of the books being added (leaving the "new" books with an incorrect author sort, and the merged books with the old correct sort!).

Similarly the edit dialog that has the green/red background for author sort has pretty "random" behaviour in deciding which colour to show.

Basically I have no confidence in Calibre's ability to handle a "ln, fn" format for authors and have to manually check the files appear sorted correctly in the list (fixing the incorrect ones) which is extra pain that seems avoidable. It is like there is some cache or something of the incorrect author sorts that it is using when adding titles for those authors - knowing nothing about the architecture is this possible?

Anyone else experienced this or got advice on what I have done wrong?

[kiwidude]

I'll add a quick example of one that is going wrong for me. The author name is "Harrison, M. John". All the existing books in Calibre have both the author and the author sort set to this. However when I add new books for this author, they get stored with an author sort of "John, Harrison, M.".

If I instead rename the file and make it "Harrisonn, M. John" (two n's) then Calibre will correctly add it with "Harrisonn, M. John" as both author and sort.

Confused I am.

[chaley]

What is the value of the author sort author_sort_copy_method tweak (preferences -> advanced -> tweaks)?

What is the value of the author_sort field for the existing author (right-click on an author in the left-hand tag browser pane)?

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by chaley

What is the value of the author sort author_sort_copy_method tweak (preferences -> advanced -> tweaks)?

What is the value of the author_sort field for the existing author (right-click on an author in the left-hand tag browser pane)?

Right now the author_sort_copy_method is set to "comma", but I get the same behaviour whether it is "comma" or "copy". As for the author sort, it is as per my example above. In this case both author and author sort for an existing title I have manually modified is "Harrison, M. John". But dragging new titles with that name will give them a different author sort.

Also for that particular author, the Author Sort shows up with a red background in the Author Sort textbox. Again at risk of repeating myself if I pick out different authors in my database, some will be "green", others will be "red", but in all cases the text in the author/author sort for those existing titles will be exactly the same. So it is as if Calibre has itself internally confused as to what it should be doing. There is no pattern to it I can see - "Koontz, Dean R." is 'green', "Harrison, Harry" is 'red' etc.

Doing my head in.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

As for the author sort, it is as per my example above. In this case both author and author sort for an existing title I have manually modified is "Harrison, M. John". But dragging new titles with that name will give them a different author sort.

Everything you describe is consistent with the individual author_sort values not being set the way you want.

Did you check the author_sort field for the *author*? Right-click on any author in the left-hand tags pane, choose manage authors, and look at the author_sort column for that author?

The red indicates that the *book's* author_sort value differs from the set of author_sorts derived from the individual authors.

When you change the tweak, you must also tell calibre to recompute the author_sort values for *each author*. This also is done in the same manage authors dialog.

[kiwidude]

Originally Posted by chaley

Everything you describe is consistent with the individual author_sort values not being set the way you want.

Did you check the author_sort field for the *author*? Right-click on any author in the left-hand tags pane, choose manage authors, and look at the author_sort column for that author?

The red indicates that the *book's* author_sort value differs from the set of author_sorts derived from the individual authors.

When you change the tweak, you must also tell calibre to recompute the author_sort values for *each author*. This also is done in the same manage authors dialog.

Bingo, thanks mate - that was the missing step! Sorry had never noticed the author tags on the l/h pane. It was a mish-mash mess so clicked on recalculate and now much hard disk thrashing and wait cursors as it hopefully fixes everything....

Thanks again dude!