Missing Books in my VERY OLD Kobo Account
 

I've had a Kobo account for over 10 years. I'm showing books in my purchase list that go back to Nov 2010, but I'm convinced i bought some early 2010 or late 2009. I'm convinced there's purchases missing, but I'm having difficulty finding out how to verify that.

I read something about some books being accidentally archived, and how to restore them, but i can't find the archive section in my Kobo account.

Can someone help refresh my memory to tell me when we could start buying Kobo books and save in our library and if there's been issues with some disappearing from your purchase list?

If you don't see them in your Kobo purchase history, then the email receipts would probably be the only other way to see if anything is missing on your end.

My first purchase from emails is dated April 2010. I think I registered my account when they were Shortcovers, which was probably before that, though? I likely grabbed freebies before that date.

The archive section should be linked from your Library on the website.

I'm in an identical situation. My purchases go back to early 2010 or prior and I have at least 20+ books missing from my account and there is no evidence of any archived items. I went through the customer service run-around some years ago which resulted in no resolution since I had not retained receipts that far back. Additionally, I tried resolving a formatting problem (blank pages and missing text) on one book and their one and only response was to "re-download." Really? Since then, I have purchased my books at Amazon. All my purchase history from 2009 is readily available. I would prefer to purchase epub/kepubs as opposed to performing Amazon conversions, but I lost confidence in Kobo. I love their devices but when it comes to their bookstore and CS, not so much.

And before someone brings up backup via Calibre..... yeah, we know. But that's not the point.

I checked my Kobo books and all 1567 purchases I have recorded are either in my active library or in the archives. This goes back to March 2010.

It's entirely the point. Never EVER rely on a Vendor's library/cloud/Internet for ANY electronic format purchase. Make backups. Make offsite copies. I store an HDD at a relatives house (Dropbox or your website isn't an offsite copy because it's a 3rd party and needs the Internet) as well as at least two local backups.

I've been buying software by download for nearly 20 years. On a related note, don't buy any home appliance, remote control, HiFi, heating control, security that needs access to the Internet to operate. The Maker WILL brick it by discontinuing the server, or expose it to miscreants.

The Internet and Cloud libraries are a convenience. They shouldn't be relied on. I even save websites on occasion if it's important as you can't rely on the Wayback Machine (IA archive.org) because even if they make copies, they may be incomplete. The "wget" is good, but like ebooks on a Vendor's "library" you may need javascript and explicitly saving content.

One idea that occurs to me is that the books may have been pulled from the Kobo store at some point. Perhaps the licensing before that time was different. If the books are still available for Kobo, they may not have the same ISBN numbers as the edition you purchased. 🤷🏻*♂️


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I have plenty of books that Kobo no longer sells. They are still in my library and will sync to the device or otherwise be downloaded. And there are some that the edition has changed. Again, in the library, and can be downloaded. In both cases, if I click on the link in the library, I get a page saying the book is no longer available.

I have some eBooks in my Kobo library that show as not available yet when I search, the eBook shows up as being for sale. Do you think I could get Kobo to link these books in my library with the ones for sale? There are not new editions.

I have no idea. How about asking and reporting back what happens?

I'll try the chat and see how i goes.

No, it is not the point. I don't need a lecture from you or anyone else on the merits of backup methods. Anyone participating in discussions here on MR, I daresay, is well acquainted with ways to protect their data. And I've been purchasing software for over 30 years, going back to the days of CP/M. Again, it is not the point.

There are thousands of Kobo and Amazon customers that are clueless when it comes to anything computer related. Many do not know what DRM is, much less what it means to side-load via Calibre with a little help from our apprentice pal. Further, they have no interest in doing so. They are purchasing a product with the reasonable expectation that the vendor will (and should) provide what they claim. The only requirement is to browse, click on a book and presto, it's on their device ready to go. That's all they know. They expect their books to be available in their account. Those of us here on MR do not represent the majority of consumers.

The air must be rather thin up there on that mountain of self-righteousness.

A reasonable expectation? Now there's a phrase laden with certainty. Can you quote any legal decisions as to what would constitute "a reasonable expectation" when it comes to ebook availability?

I'm pretty certain that those who purchased Microsoft .lit format ebooks are getting a chuckle out of your statements. Heck, those who purchased books from any of the ebook stores that are no longer in existence will join in the laughter.

You and I know that but it is irrelevant and meaningless to the current/recent adopters of ebooks who fall into the category I described above.

Considering we are discussing ebook purchases back in 2010, why drag a red herring of "current/recent adopters" into the discussion. I mean things like I purchased Lord Darcy from Baen back in 2003 and it still shows in my Baen purchases and is downloadable though it is no longer available to purchase as an ebook from Baen might be relevant.

Unless you can show examples where "current/recent adopters" who purchased ebooks are having issues with finding them in their libraries to download them, what is the relevance and meaning of dragging them into this discussion?

So two people claim that books purchased aren’t in their kobo library anymore. Neither can or at least has offered up any evidence of a purchase or even what books.

There’s been zero public outcry unlike when Amazon yanked a book off customers devices. We need not go into the details of why the book was pulled since for the relevance to this situation it only matters that they were pulled.

There are users with libraries as old without any issues.

It’s looking more like those books were probably purchased elsewhere, especially given the time frame since there were certainly a litany of options in 2010, and given a decade or more has past you’ve simply forgotten where you purchased said books from.