PB Touch HD3 - not showing new books

[Elfwreck]

A few days ago, my Pocketbook started having database problems. It's not updating the "New Books" section - it shows books uploaded on Jan 22 but nothing after that. When I scroll through the folders by filenames, new books don't show authors, just the actual filename. And I can select them and read them, but they don't show up in Recent Books; if I close out of the book, I have to navigate to it in the folder structure.

I know I uploaded a book that caused problems, but I deleted it, and it's still not working.

Problem book: I downloaded a fanfic series from AO3, used EpubMerge in Calibre to make them into one book. I have no idea what went wrong, but it gave Sigil weird error messages and my Pocketbook couldn't open it. I tried re-converting it to epub in Calibre, and Sigil stopped erroring but the PB still couldn't open it. (Did a couple of other workarounds; got it to where I could read it, but the database still wasn't seeing the title/author, just the filename.)

The most recent solution I've seen for a similar problem was from 2014 with the Touch Lux - but it involves "advanced settings" on the device, and the HD3 doesn't have that.

Anyone know if there's a way to repair the database & get it to recognize new books without wiping everything and starting over? I'd like to not lose my history of everything I've read or partially read.

Other details: I've never used the internet with this ereader; it's all been sideloaded by USB.

(Also recently it's started trying to sync a backup via Dropbox when plugged in and I'd like that to stop. I can manually stop it each time but I can't find a setting to turn it off. I don't know if that's related to the not-seeing-books problem.)

ETA: Software version U632.5.19.713
Release date: 21090116_162239
Localization: WW
(I have not updated anything since I bought it.)

[rkomar]

This sounds like what you see when the internal memory goes bad and becomes read-only. A good indication of that is deleting a book through the Library tab and seeing it reappear when the device is rebooted. Hopefully, this isn't the case for you and it's just a corrupted database file, but it's worth checking just to be sure.

[Elfwreck]

The internal memory is working - for books up to Jan 22. Reading those books shows up on the recent list; there are no ghost books that have been deleted. (I deleted all the recent books to see if that would fix it. It didn't, but they're not reappearing or anything like that.)

All books save their read counts - if I open a book, it goes back to where I was before.

It's just not adding new books to the recent files, not showing their metadata other than filename.

(Is there a "reboot" separate from "turn off and on again?")

[rkomar]

That's good news, because dying flash memory is a serious problem. Did you use the Library tab to delete the problem ebook, or did you delete it directly over the USB connection? If the latter, perhaps you could put the ebook back in the same place and delete it with the Library tab. The latter also removes the entries from the various databases on the device, so it might delete problematic entries.

[wold]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

(Is there a "reboot" separate from "turn off and on again?")

Pressing the power off button for a longer time, performs a shutdown (at least with newer firmware).

Anyone know if there's a way to repair the database & get it to recognize new books without wiping everything and starting over? I'd like to not lose my history of everything I've read or partially read.

If rkomar's suggestions don't work out, feel free to send me the database file* to check for corruption. Seeing 5.x firmware DBs would be interesting anyway for developing PB tools (such as transferring reading progress). Do, think it over: don't want to pounce on your misfortune

*system/explorer-3/explorer-3.db or explorer-2 (and its .wal or -shm files, if any).

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Did you use the Library tab to delete the problem ebook, or did you delete it directly over the USB connection?

I did some of each. No difference in results.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by wold

Pressing the power off button for a longer time, performs a shutdown (at least with newer firmware).

Doesn't seem to do any good.

If rkomar's suggestions don't work out, feel free to send me the database file* to check for corruption. Seeing 5.x firmware DBs would be interesting anyway for developing PB tools (such as transferring reading progress). Do, think it over: don't want to pounce on your misfortune

*system/explorer-3/explorer-3.db or explorer-2 (and its .wal or -shm files, if any).

Sent!

I am more than happy for my misfortune to have the chance of better PB tools later, even if the research doesn't result in fixing my specific problem.

It does look like my worst-case fix is "wipe back to factory settings," which would be a nuisance, but that's all it would be. (I would want to go through all my in-progress books to find out where I am with them first. I have some half-million-word fanfics I'm slowly working through.)

[rkomar]

In case anyone is interested, the database files are in SQLite format. You can copy the file off the device and peruse it with the sqlite3 utility. Maybe even fix it by hand if you are dedicated/crazy enough.

[Elfwreck]

I found a sqlite viewer to check out the database, and confirmed that (1) I have basically no idea how databases work and (2) being able to spot that, yes, new books are Not Here, does not help me figure out how or what to fix.

(Also wold says the databases are... hashed? Blocked from editing. Can't just go into the raw data and fix it to match the ereader's contents. I guess that makes sense; it'd be much easier to break the database than fix it that way.)

[rkomar]

Doesn't calibre update the database when it installs ebooks on the pocketbook devices? Perhaps there are clues there about what needs to be done. Anyway, that's for someone who is comfortable with SQL. It's not a job for just anyone (including myself).

[wold]

Originally Posted by rkomar

In case anyone is interested, the database files are in SQLite format. You can copy the file off the device and peruse it with the sqlite3 utility. Maybe even fix it by hand if you are dedicated/crazy enough.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I found a sqlite viewer to check out the database, and confirmed that (1) I have basically no idea how databases work and (2) being able to spot that, yes, new books are Not Here, does not help me figure out how or what to fix.

There's not that much you can do with the databases. Checking for corruption is one thing (closed transactions & integrity_check), the other seeing which books were added last. (It happens I'm interested in DB changes between firmwares, for a reading progress transfer.)

Originally Posted by rkomar;

Doesn't calibre update the database when it installs ebooks on the pocketbook devices? Perhaps there are clues there about what needs to be done. Anyway, that's for someone who is comfortable with SQL. It's not a job for just anyone (including myself).

Only for Kobo readers (and others perhaps) the DB is modified directly.

(Also wold says the databases are... hashed? Blocked from editing. Can't just go into the raw data and fix it to match the ereader's contents. I guess that makes sense; it'd be much easier to break the database than fix it that way.)

Not the databases, but the PB configuration files have a hashed signature. Those config files (effectively .txt files) can't be edited, only deleted or left as is. Databases can be modified at will.

This came up as your "recent items" list fails to update. Now the recent list data is stored (for me) in /system/cache/desktop/cache.dat, so deleting that, and it's .back copy, is worth a try (as you already removed newly added books).

[Elfwreck]

Two+ years later: Same problem. I don't have a specific problem ebook this time; it just stopped showing new books in the "recent books" queue, and doesn't show them in the "new books" listing, not by addition date nor opening date.

(I also found out what the problem-ebook issue was last time: Some emojis make the ereader choke up and freeze. I really wish there were a regedit way to delete all emojis.)

I can sort them by filename and find them, and it remembers where I left off in each of them. I'm wondering if removing cache.dat from the recent data will fix the problem or wind up with no recently read/added list.

I can't remember what happened last time; I know I wound up with marking everything unread and having to consult notes to see which ones I was partway through reading.

[neil_swann80]

The emojis are in the ebooks? If this is causing the issue you should raise a ticket with PockeBook and give them a replicatable example.

In the meantime, write a script to batch strip any emoji codes from your books, reset your device and only upload de-emoji-ed books?

Can you sync your book progress with PocketBook cloud?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Two+ years later: Same problem. I don't have a specific problem ebook this time; it just stopped showing new books in the "recent books" queue, and doesn't show them in the "new books" listing, not by addition date nor opening date...

Are you still using firmware 5.19.xx? If so, maybe there was an issue that was fixed in one of the later versions of the firmware?

[Elfwreck]

I am using whatever firmware it had when I bought it. I'm leery of updating firmware; I've heard too many stories about problems with that, especially since I never use any of the online features.

I may have found a fix - whatever scrambled it also reset the time/date, and when I fixed that, it started registering new books. Still doesn't show the ones I added when it had problems, but I can work around that for the ones I'd started reading, and I can remove & re-add the others.