Clearing data in the Kobo app

[49Kat]

As some of you might know, I've had ongoing issues with a certain book I purchased from Kobo insistently reverting to preview status. I have been in communication with Kobo help, and in that, I did miss their request to reset the Vox. I'm not sure what kind of reset they had in mind and I've only tonight just asked for clarification. I don't want to do a factory reset because I have got a LOT of stuff installed on my device, and up until tonight, it was only one little book. Since I had a copy on my Sony, plus Kobo ended up issuing a refund for the book, I had decided to let the matter go. I've purchased several books since, and had not had any problems.

Until tonight. A book I purchased on March 24th is now reverting to preview status, which, once again, has me in the position of not being confident about making any further purchases.

With the first book, I tried sideloading the epub from my laptop to an SD card and reading it on another app on the Vox, but it won't go past the preview point, even after I've 'fixed' the book in the Vox library. (The fix only lasts for a few hours, 24 at the most.)

When another book started misbehaving tonight, I sideloaded it and I am able to read it properly in Aldiko. This was after I did a fix in the Kobo libary app. I don't know if the fix will hold or not.

Again, I don't want to do a factory reset and lose everything, including lots of annotations in some of my Kobo Vox library books.

So I did some checking and found some info about clearing data in individual apps as part of troubleshooting or problem-solving. That's home-settings-manage applications-all-Kobo-clear data. I didn't clear the data, however, since I saw there was an option to clear the cache. I wondered if that would work to clear a corrupted download, so I gave that a try and I'll see how that goes. If I could possible find the folder itself with the individual book within the Vox's file structure, I would have tried deleting that (using Astro to navigate) and let the Vox re-do the download clean, but those folders aren't named in any sensible way.

Has anyone looked into this, if clearing the Kobo app's data would wipe out all the books? I wouldn't mind reloading all of them, but I would mind losing my bookmarks and annotations, so this would be a last resort.

I'm simply not going to do a factory reset. I would sooner stop using the Kobo app entirely and just sideload and use other reading apps if it comes to that. When all of this started, I had already decided if this continued to happen with other titles, I would make my ebook purchases elsewhere. Kobo does offer some good deals, though. For me, the problem seems to be the Kobo app.

[larrymohr]

49Kat,

Let's start at the beginning.

Have you tried to remove the book from inside the Kobo app?
On the library page in the app, use a long press on the book in question.
Then choose "Remove Book" from the menu that pops up.

This should remove the files from your Kobo internal SD card.

To check use Astro to browse to the following location:

/mnt/sdcard/KoboPegasus/epubs

You will see a number of folders with odd names.( Look like GUIDs to me.)
These are the books that show in the Library in the Kobo app.
The files of the epubs/kepubs have been extracted into the folders.

If you count the number of folders before and after deleting you will at least know that something was deleted.

Then try to download a fresh copy.

Since it sounds like your book has DRM you will not be able to tell which folder contains the book in question.

Larry

[49Kat]

Hi Larry,

I have been through that process numerous times already.

The app is now misbehaving with more titles. For example, I was reading yet another book I had purchased and it got to a point where the preview would have ended and said the rest of the chapter was not available in the preview (when I first opened the book, it hadn't been displayed as a preview, so seeing this was a surprise to me). Then a window popped up telling me that the remainder of the book was available to download at no charge. So I downloaded it and carried on, wondering what gives with that.

With the second book with the issue, which I purchased March 24th, I started going through the pages and got well into it. I was not stopped at any point and told it was a preview. I went back to the cover page and back to the library, and this book was now properly displayed as a purchased book. The little pink preview banner was gone.

With the very first book which I've been having problems with for weeks now, I went through pages, well into the book, although it stubbornly carried the preview banner. (I have 'fixed' this numerous times and finally just gave up.) Same thing, back to the cover, back to the library. Preview banner still there. I long pressed and removed the book. Exited the Kobo app, cleared it's cache. Shut down the Vox. Went to my library on my computer, did the usual thing of going to my purchased page and putting a bookmark in that book. Turned on the Vox, refreshed the library. Book re-downloaded into the Vox, and it's OK. For now. I have done this many times, it never sticks beyond 24 hours.

Scrolling through my shelves, I found a book that I had purchased and finished reading a long time ago, now with the 'preview' banner. I opened that up, went through, deep into the book, was not stopped and told it was a preview. Back to the cover page, back to the library. Preview banner still there.

I had been using 'preview' as a substitute for a wish list--books I am interested in and might purchase later. However, I think I'm going to remove all my previewed books. I'm not sure if I had ever previewed the most recent book to display this, as it is a book I would have wanted to purchase without hesitation, it being the 4th in a series. The others--I think I did preview them before I purchased. Maybe the Vox just can't handle that.

[49Kat]

I just went to my Kobo account and removed from my library any books I had not purchased yet (other than the freebies that came with the Vox). Refreshed my Vox library and all the previews disappeared, except for book #3 with the problem. I bookmarked that one in my account library, refreshed the Vox library, and the pink banner is gone.

I would advise anyone when they make purchases from Kobo to download the file to a computer hard drive. You can do that if you have Adobe Digital Editions. (I use my Sony Reader library software simply because it came with my Sony reader and have been transferring my Kobo purchases to my Sony reader as well...because I like to have a backup. )

[49Kat]

Larry,

I'll go into that Pegasus folder later this evening and see if the number of folders corresponds to the number of books I'm seeing in the library. It would be interesting to see if removing it from the Vox library actually does delete the folder as well.

Thanks!

[larrymohr]

49Kat,

Very mysterious.

Just out of curiosity, are any of the problem books showing up in your "recomendatons" either on the Vox or the website?

I am wondering if somewhere in the database, a tag that a book is a preview is somehow not being updated or removed. That of course would have to be fixed by Kobo.

Am I correct in thinking that you are able to read all the books, but some have the preview flag even though you can finish reading the book?

Larry

[49Kat]

Just out of curiosity, are any of the problem books showing up in your "recomendatons" either on the Vox or the website?

No.

I am wondering if somewhere in the database, a tag that a book is a preview is somehow not being updated or removed. That of course would have to be fixed by Kobo.

I wonder...There are now no longer any preview items in my Vox library. There are 67 books on my shelves, plus 17 previews which have been moved into the 'trash' section in my library on Kobo's website, which totals 84. There are 87 folders in the epub folder in the Pegasus folder on the Vox.

Am I correct in thinking that you are able to read all the books, but some have the preview flag even though you can finish reading the book?

When the problem first started with book #1, I wasn't able to get past the preview point, but now I can.

In playing with the Vox, I only just discovered by swiping sideways in the library, you could go to separate shelf pages for "My books", "All", and "Previews", and a separate page for "Recommendations". I had only been looking at "All", but I'll leave it on "My books" and see if the titles disappear from that page when/if the preview plague shows up again.

I don't yet know what Kobo support meant by 'resetting the Vox'. If they meant a reset which would send my Vox back to factory specs, I don't know why that would be the first recommended step when possibly clearing the app's database might fix the issue, since it's only one app that is having the problem. I'll see what they say about it. I've been curious about whether or not anyone else has taken this step for any reason and, if so, what the results were.

I've been enjoying my Vox and I've been doing a lot of reading with it. It would be nice if this little glitch could be fixed without having to do anything too drastic.

[StPaddy]

I finally took the plunge and applied the March update to my Vox last night.
All appeared to be fine until I looked at my library where two of my purchased books now have the "Preview" banner!
I've raised a ticket with Kobo - no answer yet.
Until I get a reply from Kobo and if I understand 49Kat's experience and larrymohr's suggestions, I will try the following this evening (when I am at my Vox):

1) Open the incorrectly bannered 'preview' book to see if I can access the entire publication. If so, I'll leave everything as is and ignore the misleading banner.
2) I will check the new 'recommendations' area to see if the two books in question are in that list (might be an indicator of the problem).
3) I will 'remove' the publication from my Vox and resync with the Kobo store library.

Failing these ideas I will try to load it from my PC (via ADE) and a USB cable and see if it gets 'preview' tagged when I resync with the store library.

Note to Kobo guys: you've got to do more quality assurance testing on your releases.

[49Kat]

I now leave my Vox library on the "My books" screen and I check the "Preview" screen (by swipping sideways). It's just easy to see at a glance if a book has been erroneously placed there by Kobo. Now a completely different book is showing up there daily, and it's a purchase I made months ago, before I even had the Vox, actually. I just go to the contents, navigate to a point well within the book, close it, and the preview banner is gone. If I refresh, the book gets put back into its proper place.

I could ignore the preview banner, too, but I guess I just want to make sure I still actually do have access to the full book. Anyway, it's a lot easier than what I used to do, involving going to the Kobo website and setting a bookmark from there.

I no longer use 'preview' as a wish list. It's just easier to leave it empty so I can tell at a glance whether or not the Kobo software is being goofy. I'm putting my 'might read/buy in the future' selections on a list on my account at goodreads instead.

StPaddy, I've had this happen with 4 different books so far. For the past few days, it's been just one book that this has been happening with. Kobo tried to close my support ticket, I updated when the issue started with book #2, but they haven't responded and I've concluded they don't really know what to do about it. Oh well, it's minor, as long as it ain't costing me any $.

Oops, forgot to mention that they gave me a refund for the first book this happened with, although I didn't ask for one and didn't expect it.

[StPaddy]

I received a response from Kobo support. The instructions are:
1) Go to your account at the Kobo site.
2) Go to your library and select the titles that are showing up as 'free preview'
3) Click Delete (this just moves them to the Trash tab)
4) Resync your Kobo Vox library - this removes them from the library on the Vox.
5) Go back to your Kobo account at the Kobo site.
6) Click on the Trash tab.
7) Select the titles that you 'delelted'.
8) Click UNDELETE (moves them back to your purchased library).
9) Now resync your library on the Vox - the titles now appear without the banner.

This worked for me, however, I will monitor it. I typically stay on Airplane mode.

No reason for the problem was given.

[49Kat]

It'll be interesting to see if that fix holds for you.

Kobo support wrote back and said they had removed and replaced the book in my account. This would have been book #2, but by then things had progressed and I hadn't been having any issues with that book anymore anyway.

Later on, day before yesterday, late afternoon, the Vox library updated and I saw a book in the preview pane that I had not purchased. It wasn't on my lists anywhere in Kobo, although I do remember reading a preview of that book at some point. I think I ended up removing it, but I don't see it anywhere, not even on the 'trash' page. The cover of the book also looked different than the one now sold on Kobo, but it was the same book. I used the table of contents to navigate to the middle of the book and saw the popup that that part of the book wasn't available, but I could download the book for $0. I think the book retails at about $12.99, and while I had been interested a while back, I tend to stick to a $10 or less policy for fiction unless it's something I "must" have, and this wasn't one of those books. I didn't at that time, do the download, but wondered if Kobo hadn't decided to 'give' me a book. I refreshed the library and the book totally disappeared. Well, no biggie, I hadn't purchased it anyway.

Yesterday, 2 entirely different books I had already purchased ended up in the preview pane, and I did the same as I had been doing to move them back to the my books pane.

So far today, none of my purchased books have shown up in the wrong place. I'll see if 24 hours can go by without this happening.

[49Kat]

Well, there ya go. Book #2, plus the additional books from yesterday are now in my preview pane. StPaddy, I'll try your way and see what happens.

[49Kat]

Update: I now have 3 books in the preview pane, so the advice StPaddy was given did not work for me.

This is really quite silly. I wish the library would just cease refreshing unless I actually tell it to and just leave me alone unless I actually purchase a book and need to download it to the Vox.

[49Kat]

I just went to the Vox's Settings-Accounts and sync settings and changed the settings from allowing background data to sync, send, and receive data at any time to "auto-sync", although I rather fail to see the difference just by looking at these choices. I'll see if that stops the Kobo library from syncing every time I open the app...and I wish the reading life would stop as well, I don't need it and I don't use it.

[StPaddy]

When I opened my library, the two books had the banner return. One reset itself to not having the banner, the other retained the banner. I did the website delete/undelete again and it corrected itself.

Looks like it temporarily fixes the problem..no permanent fix.

Not sure if I can update the "bug log" on this forum..I will give it a try...maybe Kobo will fix it.
I will also reply to Kobo support telling them their solution is only a temporary fix.