disappearing books and other things...

[killa]

Hello to everyone!

First of all, thanks for Calibre
I adore this program!!

I'd like to point out some problems that I have: (I'm using the most recent version..)


first: updating Calibre from the old version, I lost some books from the library... And in more than one occasion.
As the books disappearing seem to be random, I never know which ones are missing.. Is it a usual problem? Am I the only one with this problem? Is it possible to solve it?
(example: before the upgrade i had 1530 books, after I have 1525.)

The second point is a request: in Calibre is possible to order the books by author. Is it possible to upgrade the order adding inside the "author" folder a subfolder with the series?
For example:
Folder: Nalini Singh

Subfolders:

Changelings series
Angels series
Others

Folder: Terry Brooks

Subfolders:

Shannara series
Word and Void trilogy
Landover trilogy
Others

and so on.


third: My Calibre doesn't convert from .doc or .docz extensions. and I have lots of books in those formats waiting to be converted.


fourth and last :
when I add a book with no metadata, I download the metadata from the internet.
How can I add the metadata to the book, short of reconverting the book in the same format?

(if some of my questions are unclear, please, tell me, and i'll try to explain better. I'm italian, so explaining thing in english is difficult for me...)


Thank you very much!!

Chiara

[Manichean]

I can only answer some of those questions, but here we go...

Originally Posted by killa

first: updating Calibre from the old version, I lost some books from the library... And in more than one occasion.
As the books disappearing seem to be random, I never know which ones are missing.. Is it a usual problem? Am I the only one with this problem? Is it possible to solve it?
(example: before the upgrade i had 1530 books, after I have 1525.)

While I can't help you with that, I can say that you should add some more information to help the wizards troubleshoot. In particular, the version you upgraded from, the version you upgraded to and your OS would be of interest, I think.

Originally Posted by killa

The second point is a request: in Calibre is possible to order the books by author. Is it possible to upgrade the order adding inside the "author" folder a subfolder with the series?

That sounds dangerously like you're messing around inside Calibre's library folder. You're not supposed to do that, use the GUI for accessing the books.

Originally Posted by killa

third: My Calibre doesn't convert from .doc or .docz extensions. and I have lots of books in those formats waiting to be converted.

Yes, it doesn't support those formats. Convert to a supported format externally and go from there.

Originally Posted by killa

fourth and last :
when I add a book with no metadata, I download the metadata from the internet.
How can I add the metadata to the book, short of reconverting the book in the same format?

I don't know for sure, AFAIK, some metadata gets written into some formats right away. You'll have to wait for someone knowledgeable to show up.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by killa

first: updating Calibre from the old version, I lost some books from the library... And in more than one occasion.
As the books disappearing seem to be random, I never know which ones are missing.. Is it a usual problem? Am I the only one with this problem? Is it possible to solve it?
(example: before the upgrade i had 1530 books, after I have 1525.)

Losing books/formats is not normal.

When you say 'books are lost', do you mean the formats (epub, etc), or the metadata (the stuff on calibre's library view)? Your comment indicates it is metadata.

The only way I know of to lose a book from the database is to change the database. Are you using something like dropbox? Are you getting conflicts? Books can get 'lost' of calibre's database (metadata.db) is reverted to an older version.

Have you run a database integrity check? (Preferences -> advanced -> miscellaneous)

The second point is a request: in Calibre is possible to order the books by author. Is it possible to upgrade the order adding inside the "author" folder a subfolder with the series?
For example:
...

Assuming you are talking about calibre's library folders, the answer is no. That hierarchy is owned by calibre, and you cannot change it.

If you want to know why, search the forum. The question has been beaten to death about a zillion times.

third: My Calibre doesn't convert from .doc or .docz extensions. and I have lots of books in those formats waiting to be converted.

Open them with word (or whatever), save them as RTF, and convert those.

fourth and last :
when I add a book with no metadata, I download the metadata from the internet.
How can I add the metadata to the book, short of reconverting the book in the same format?

This time, by 'book' you must mean the format (epub, mobi, etc)?

Some metadata is automatically added to formats when you send them to your reader (the device) or save them to disk. Covers are one of the items that aren't added, because covers are part of the book and not really metadata.

Metadata is not added to the formats in your library for several reasons. If you really want to add the new stuff, you must reconvert.

Thank you very much!!

Chiara

You are welcome. And I wish my (non-existent) Italian was as good as your English.

[speakingtohe]

I have books appear to go missing after an upgrade.
On the one occasion I was able to check the books were missing before the upgrade but didn't show in the book count. (I had just backed up database to another computer which still had prior version of calibre installed) and/or had no formats (formats:false)
AFAIK the books went missing due to conversion errors or remove book errors which were caused by my having the book open in a viewer when the operations were being performed.

Converting epub to epub will give an error message if book is open in non calibre viewer and deletes the epub format. Metadata is still there but no epub format. If epub format is only format than book must be reimported

Removing book will give an error message if book is open in non calibre viewer and deletes the book from GUI but leaves it in folders directory and doesn't decrement book count. AFAIR when new verion is installed it seems to get book count correct again.

I opened a ticket on this a while back
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...ghlight=ticket

Hope I have not been too confusing.

Helen

[killa]

Thank you for the answers, you all

While I can't help you with that, I can say that you should add some more information to help the wizards troubleshoot. In particular, the version you upgraded from, the version you upgraded to and your OS would be of interest, I think.

My OS is Windows Xp..
I noticed the disappearance of the books in three occasions.
1. When Calibre moved the library from and hardisk to another
2. when I updated Calibre from version 0.6.26(i think, I'm not sure about this) to 0.7.18
3. When I updated Calibre from version 0.7.19 to 0.7.20.(the last upgrade)
I only noticed the missing because I was searching for that particoular book I knew was on Calibre and it wasn't there.
So I checked the others books and I found a few others missing.
I really hope there's something you can can do to help... I'd hate to lose other books...


thank you for the answers and the explanations on the other things.
I really appreciate you taking the time to explain things to me.
thank you!