Sending metadata to Kobo Glo via Calibre is slow

[Julez]

Would love if someone can shed some light on this!

I notice that calibre is taking longer and longer to "send metadata to device". I normally sideload all my books to microSD card.

It takes a couple of seconds to upload books (be it 1 or 10 books) and the other jobs but now it takes at least 1min 30 secs to send metadata to the device. It was never that long before.

Is it something to do with my settings?

Calibre version 2.73
Kobo Glo version 3.19.5761

[davidfor]

The time taken to do the "send metadata to device" job does not depend on how many books you send to the device, but on how many books you have on the device. Each time it runs, whether it is when you connect the device, send or delete books, it will process the details in the database on the device for all the books to update the collections and series info if you have these set. It also updates the file metadata.calibre that calibre uses to assist in connecting the books between the device and calibre library.

[Julez]

Thanks for your reply!

Is there no way to cut down the time? I have over 1000+ ebooks on SD card and growing! I don't need it to update the old collections, just the new ones which I am uploading. I wouldn't mind if I had to update the entire collection now and then but I am a pretty voracious reader so go through books quite quickly.

I also have an issue with the turning of pages. I have mine set with the top half to turn backwards and the bottom to move forward. It sometimes goes wonky and flips backwards even though it's supposed to move ahead. There have been times it hangs! I normally rectify it by turning it off and then back on. A pop-up box will appear and will say "Something went wrong". Is there a patch for this?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Julez

Thanks for your reply!

Is there no way to cut down the time? I have over 1000+ ebooks on SD card and growing! I don't need it to update the old collections, just the new ones which I am uploading. I wouldn't mind if I had to update the entire collection now and then but I am a pretty voracious reader so go through books quite quickly.

The driver isn't updating all the collections, it is updating what has changed since the last connection. But, that means it has to check the current state of the collections. The time taken will also depend on the number of collections and how many books are on them. The more collections, and the more books per collection, the longer it will take.

Having said that, your 1m 30 seems a bit long. For 3200 books and 38 pages of collections, it takes about 30 seconds on my Glo HD. I don't have enough books on my Glo, so I can't say how long it takes. I'll have to do some experiments. And I'll have another look at the code. It was as efficient a I could make it at he time, but, it has been a while.

It might be worthwhile checking and compressing the database. Any problems in the database could slow things down. And the compress will reorganise the database and clean up any unused space. This should improve the performance. My Kobo Utilities plugin has both functions, or you can use an SQLite database manager.

I also have an issue with the turning of pages. I have mine set with the top half to turn backwards and the bottom to move forward. It sometimes goes wonky and flips backwards even though it's supposed to move ahead. There have been times it hangs! I normally rectify it by turning it off and then back on. A pop-up box will appear and will say "Something went wrong". Is there a patch for this?

Over the years, there have been a lot of complaints about erratic page turns. Some of them are firmware version dependent, some seem to be the device and some seem to be the user. The recent firmware seem to be better in this regard as I haven't heard complaints recently, but 3.19.5761 should be OK. For the device, clean under the bevel, as anything trapped there can affect the IR touch emitters and sensors. And for the user, some people see these problems when they tap, and others when they swipe. I've never seen a good explanation of why.

[Julez]

I will take your advice and revert. I see the option to compress database but I will have to explore SQLite database manager. This girl here is far from being a techie so this may be tricky Hahaha

So far I have been cleaning the screen from edge to edge with a screen cleaner and a micro fibre cloth. I'll have to look more closely but seems pretty ok to me.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Julez

I will take your advice and revert. I see the option to compress database but I will have to explore SQLite database manager. This girl here is far from being a techie so this may be tricky Hahaha

The compress through the Kobo Utilities is the same that the database manager will do. I mention the choice in case someone doesn't want the plugin or simply prefers to do it themselves.

So far I have been cleaning the screen from edge to edge with a screen cleaner and a micro fibre cloth. I'll have to look more closely but seems pretty ok to me.

My son's Touch had a tiny piece of paper stuck in the corner at one time. It meant that the menu wouldn't stay open when tapped. Something like that isn't likely to be causing your problem, but it's a good idea to eliminate all the possibilities.

[Julez]

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you! Things got manic on my end! Hope you had a good break over Christmas and new year!

I finally compressed the database and it shaved of 30 secs when it had to "send metadata to device". So I am down to 1 minute at the moment.

Did you make any headway with your tests?

By the way, after you mentioned about cleaning under the bezel, I actually had an issue at the top right hand corner where I couldn't close the settings menu. I actually had to use a corner of a very fine microfiber cloth soaked in screen cleaning fluid to clean under the bezel for it to work again!! Thanks for the tip!

Do let me know if you other suggestions where I could improve the kobo a bit more. Much thanks and happy new year!

[GeoffR]

It could just be that your micro-SD card is very slow, and a faster one might help.

I am not sure exactly what activity you are measuring (sending metadata takes less than a second on my Glo, so we must be thinking of different things), but in general you should be able to work out how much of the time spent is due to Calibre and how much is due to the slow micro-SD card by closing and restarting Calibre with the device still plugged in and repeating the activity. The first time will be the time taken by Calibre plus the time Calibre spends waiting for the micro-SD card. The second time the files will be in the system cache and so the time should be almost entirely the time taken by Calibre. Subtract the second time from the first and you have the time taken by the micro-SD card.

E.g. I have about 1000 books on my Glo, Kobo database size is about 80MB, Calibre metadata is about 2.5MB. The first time I plug the device in it takes Calibre about 20 seconds to fetch data from the device. Close and restart Calibre with the device still plugged in and it only takes about 5 seconds, so I take it that Calibre is spending aout 15 seconds waiting on the micro-SD card. (I have a 8GB class 4 Sandisk card.)

[Julez]

Hi GeoffR,

The time I am referring to is when I side load books on into my kobo. If you click on "Jobs" on the bottom right of Calibre, you can see the different processes and the time it takes when I send ebooks to device. All my ebooks are saved to SD card. That's what I am referring to.

I am running a 16GB, class 10 SanDisk card.

[davidfor]

@Julez: As I said before, a lot of the time depends on the number of books, collections, number of books in the collections and number of books with series. You could turn the collection management and series info options off in the driver and see how much time was saved. I would also be interested in seeing a debug log from calibre to see if there are any obvious places that are using time. From my logs, it isn't obvious, but maybe the comparison will show something.

I also haven't had a real chance to check the code. I have looked at one of the things I was thinking of, and it's about as quick as I can do. But, if it is a problem point, the debug log would show.

For the debug log, restart calibre in debug mode (right-click the preferences button and choose the option), then connect the device. After the jobs have finished, close calibre. The debug log will be displayed. Post or PM the log to me to look at.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Julez

The time I am referring to is when I side load books on into my kobo. If you click on "Jobs" on the bottom right of Calibre, you can see the different processes and the time it takes when I send ebooks to device. All my ebooks are saved to SD card. That's what I am referring to.

I am running a 16GB, class 10 SanDisk card.

That "Send metadata to device" job only takes 1 second at most on my Glo. But from what davidfor said I guess the difference is because I don't have any collections managed by Calibre.