Newbie dealing with eBooks and Calibre

[DUCKofD3ATH]

Hi all,

I'd like to make Calibre work with my iPod Touch, iTunes, and iBooks.

I'm not sure how I'm making it happen, but when I import an eBook into Calibre, it somehow eventually ends up on the iPod's iBooks app and in iTunes, which is great. Unfortunately, some metadata doesn't cross over. For example, tags that I added in Calibre don't consistently appear in iTunes, and ratings applied in iTunes don't sync back to Calibre.

To recap:

Please explain the best way to make the Caliber > iTunes > iPod Touch > iBooks app transfer. What metadata will fail to make the transfer to iTunes and what changes can I make there that will sync back to Calibre?

Thanks for your help!

[itimpi]

What are you doing to transfer the books to the iPod? There are two ways to do this - via the Apple Device drive and the Send To Device to transfer it, or via Connect to iTunes and Send to Device.

As far as I know there is currently no support for syncing changes made in iBooks back to Calibr.

[DUCKofD3ATH]

Hi itimpi,

When I start Calibre, it say Apple Device Detected, then it displays "Connected iDevice" in the lower left corner. After a minute or so "ERROR: Error communicating with device" appears.

ERROR: Error: Error communicating with device

When I click "Show Details..." it shows:

(app(u'/Applications/iTunes.app').sources.ID(72).user_playlists.(D(4457 69).file_tracks.get, ((), {}), aem.EventError(-1712, ", None))

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 69, in run
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 311, in _books
File "site-packages/calibre/apple/device.py", line 307, in books
File "site-packages/calibre/apple/device.py", line 2069, in _get_library_books
File "site-packages/calibre/appscript/reference.py", line 643, in __call__
File "site-packages/calibre/appscript/reference.py", line 499, in __call__
CommandError: Command failed:
OSERROR: -1712
MESSAGE: Apple event timed out.
(app(u'/Applications/iTunes.app').sources.ID(72).user_playlists.(D(4457 69).file_tracks.get()

(I typed the above by hand since the "Copy" button doesn't work so there may be typos)

When I've finished converting an eBook to epub format, I click "Send to Device" > Send to Main Memory. A check appears under the "On Device" column next to the eBook's title and the eBook also shows up in iTunes. The weird thing is that none of the other books in Calibre have that check mark next to them, but they ALSO appear in iTunes. Is that normal?

How do I use the Connect to iTunes setting? That sounds like what I need, but it's grayed out in the menu.

[itimpi]

The Connect to iTunes is now the preferred method of interacting with iDevices. The reason it will be greyed out is that the Calibre Apple device plugin is active and you have your iPod plugged in. This method has the advantage that the Apple device does not need to be connected to get the book transferred unto iTunes..

To be able to use it you need to go into the Calibre->Preferences->Plugins->device Interface Plugins and disable the Apple Plugin and restatrtCalibre. Now you will be able to use the Connect to iTunes feature, and leave iTunes to handle syncing with the iPod as and when appropriate.

There is also a set of recommended iTunes settings for the syncing to work well (they tend to be the default ones). This should (I think) be covered in the Calibre User Guide.

[GRiker]

Review the first post in this thread. It addresses how to use 'Connect to iTunes', and the Metadata mapping section explains how metadata is transferred to iTunes.

As itimpi noted, changes made to metadata in iTunes are not migrated back to calibre.

G

[DUCKofD3ATH]

I made the changes you suggested and now iTunes is the Device, but I'm still getting the same "Error communicating with device" as before, should I ignore it?

[DUCKofD3ATH]

Thanks, GRiker, that's the procedure I was looking for, it helped a lot. I'm still getting an "Apple event timed out" error, should I send it in as a bug or ignore it?

ERROR: Error: Error communicating with device

When I click "Show Details..." it shows:

(app(u'/Applications/iTunes.app').sources.ID(72).user_playlists.(D(4457 69).file_tracks.get, ((), {}), aem.EventError(-1712, ", None))

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 69, in run
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 311, in _books
File "site-packages/calibre/apple/device.py", line 307, in books
File "site-packages/calibre/apple/device.py", line 2069, in _get_library_books
File "site-packages/calibre/appscript/reference.py", line 643, in __call__
File "site-packages/calibre/appscript/reference.py", line 499, in __call__
CommandError: Command failed:
OSERROR: -1712
MESSAGE: Apple event timed out.
(app(u'/Applications/iTunes.app').sources.ID(72).user_playlists.(D(4457 69).file_tracks.get()

[GRiker]

Create a bug report as described in that thread, I will need all of the details leading up to the error, not just the failure point.

G