Issues with books showing up on Kindle Fire from Calibre

[dduquette]

Hello. I am having issues when I try to transfer books to my Kindle fire from Calibre. Calibre shows they are on the main memory, but when I go to my Kindle, they do not appear in the books section. I only have about 16 books currently on my kindle, but want to add more. Has anyone else had this problem? What do I do to fix it??

Thanks!

[wallcraft]

See if they are under the Docs "app".

If so, set Preferences -> Output Options -> MOBI Output -> Personal Document Tag to blank (no entry). Then do a MOBI to MOBI conversion, delete the Kindle Fire copy (you can use Calibre to do this when the Fire is connected via USB) and recopy from Calibre to the Fire. This should get them to show up in Books.

[dduquette]

no, they are not in docs.

they sometimes show up in the carousel on the main page, but still don't show up in the books section.

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

See if they are under the Docs "app".

If so, set Preferences -> Output Options -> MOBI Output -> Personal Document Tag to blank (no entry). Then do a MOBI to MOBI conversion, delete the Kindle Fire copy (you can use Calibre to do this when the Fire is connected via USB) and recopy from Calibre to the Fire. This should get them to show up in Books.

Would he have to enter the [EBOK] tag?

Carol

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by dduquette

no, they are not in docs.

they sometimes show up in the carousel on the main page, but still don't show up in the books section.

Can you read the MOBI version (View -> View specific format) within Calibre? If not, perhaps they still have DRM and are locked to a different device.

[Enuf]

I had similar problem with my kindle touch which nearly drove me mad. I could see that the books were on the device in Calibre and also by looking at the disk.

After several resets of the device I discovered that I needed to select "all items" on the home page. And viola there were all my books. Hope this helps.

[GoSharks]

Originally Posted by sadievan

Would he have to enter the [EBOK] tag?

Carol

Nope...[EBOK] is not necessary. A blank field works just fine.

[wallcraft]

Your best bet may be to do a Factory Reset. This is Settings -> Device -> Reset to Factory Defaults. This wipes out all your files (all ebooks, all apps, etcetera) and also the Fire's registration to your account. So if you do this you have to reenter your WiFi password, and then reregister your Fire. So this is a drastic step, but I think your Fire's Books database is likely corrupted and there may be no alternative.

If you want to try less drastic steps first, I would start with a hard reset by holding the power button for 20 seconds. If that does not help, clear the Books cache from Settings -> Apps -> All Apps -> Amazon Kindle -> Clear Cache. If that does not help try "Clear Data" from the same page (I'm not sure if this deletes the ebooks or just their entries in the Books app). If none of this helps, then go for the Factory Reset.

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by GoSharks

Nope...[EBOK] is not necessary. A blank field works just fine.

Thanks GS. Is there any advantage at all to adding the [EBOK] tag? Or is it best to leave it blank? I had added it at the suggestion of some on MR.

Carol

[GoSharks]

Originally Posted by sadievan

Thanks GS. Is there any advantage at all to adding the [EBOK] tag? Or is it best to leave it blank? I had added it at the suggestion of some on MR.

Carol

Great question! I just left it blank as that worked and I didn't want to have to redo everything again in Calibre... but I don't know if it effects a functionality I'm not using. Anyone else know?

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by sadievan

Is there any advantage at all to adding the [EBOK] tag? Or is it best to leave it blank?

The suggestion to use [EBOK] is based on a misunderstanding of how Calibre's Personal Doc process works. If the tag is present for an ebook the MOBI sent to a device is marked as a PDOC, even if the tag says EBOK. So if you don't ever want a MOBI marked as a personal doc, the best option is to leave it blank. Note that [EBOK] typically works, because you have not added [EBOK] as a tag in Calibre for your ebooks, but it is confusing.

[GoSharks]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

The suggestion to use [EBOK] is based on a misunderstanding of how Calibre's Personal Doc process works. If the tag is present for an ebook the MOBI sent to a device is marked as a PDOC, even if the tag says EBOK. So if you don't ever want a MOBI marked as a personal doc, the best option is to leave it blank. Note that [EBOK] typically works, because you have not added [EBOK] as a tag in Calibre for your ebooks, but it is confusing.

Thanks for taking the time to clarify! K to you...

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

The suggestion to use [EBOK] is based on a misunderstanding of how Calibre's Personal Doc process works. If the tag is present for an ebook the MOBI sent to a device is marked as a PDOC, even if the tag says EBOK. So if you don't ever want a MOBI marked as a personal doc, the best option is to leave it blank. Note that [EBOK] typically works, because you have not added [EBOK] as a tag in Calibre for your ebooks, but it is confusing.

Yes it is confusing. So your saying IF I use [EBOK] it is marked as a PDOC?

Thanks
Carol

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by sadievan

Yes it is confusing. So your saying IF I use [EBOK] it is marked as a PDOC?

If you include whatever tag is listed as "Personal Document Tag" under Output -> MOBI as an tag to your ebook, then do a MOBI to MOBI conversion, and then have Calibre write the MOBI to your Fire - it will be marked internally as a PDOC and will show up under Docs. The default tag is [PDOC], but it can be anything. I use z, because that is always at the end of the list of tags that Calibre displays.

If you don't want the ebook to ever show up under Docs, then don't ever include that tag in your ebooks and the safest approach is to leave the "Personal Document Tag" blank. The reason that the [EBOK] recommendation came about is that sometimes you need to do a MOBI to MOBI conversion to get an existing ebook out of Docs (e.g. if it already has PDOC set internally). So the recommendation was to change "Personal Document Tag" to [EBOK] and do a MOBI to MOBI conversion. The [EBOK] change had no effect one way or the other, it was the conversion that mattered.

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

If you include whatever tag is listed as "Personal Document Tag" under Output -> MOBI as an tag to your ebook, then do a MOBI to MOBI conversion, and then have Calibre write the MOBI to your Fire - it will be marked internally as a PDOC and will show up under Docs. The default tag is [PDOC], but it can be anything. I use z, because that is always at the end of the list of tags that Calibre displays.

If you don't want the ebook to ever show up under Docs, then don't ever include that tag in your ebooks and the safest approach is to leave the "Personal Document Tag" blank. The reason that the [EBOK] recommendation came about is that sometimes you need to do a MOBI to MOBI conversion to get an existing ebook out of Docs (e.g. if it already has PDOC set internally). So the recommendation was to change "Personal Document Tag" to [EBOK] and do a MOBI to MOBI conversion. The [EBOK] change had no effect one way or the other, it was the conversion that mattered.

Thanks for taking the time to explain that. If I leave the field blank, will Calibre still put the book in the Documents Folder as it does now.

Carol