[Merischino]

Originally Posted by Starson17

This can be cleaned up. Obviously, you need to find out if it's working incorrectly. Some of your posts indicate to me that you may have a permissions issue, but other things can be going on.

For example, if you have a folder open in File Explorer, Calibre can't remove it when it needs to. It leaves orphan folders. They don't hurt anything, but are confusing. Permissions issue can cause these orphan folders, too.

I don't know hwo to check whether I hve a permissions issue. If it helps, I am the sole user of this computer and have all associated administrator rights. And, permissions are a problem I have encountered any number of times on a Windows machine, but on my mac they are a non-issue in my experience. Not to say it isn't possible, but since it's something that in almost 30 years of being a macuser has never happened to me, I can honestly say I'm kind of at a loss.

In what way?

I feel like I've posted this so many times that I'm blue in the face.

When I work with Calibre, I always change every recordx through the GUI so that they are standardized. When I peek under the skirts, there are multiples. There should only be one, if calibre truly works the way people here post that it does. aka using the gui to make changes will change the calibre file structure on-the-fly. so, the calibre file structure SHOULD look like my gui-fied changed library does when I'm done, and it doesnt.

More info?

What more do you need?

It sounds like it, but I'm still unable to finger your problem.

Me neither. I have since done a clean install, and as some here have posted, that did not cure the ill.

If you want, to, but personally I don't see that as being the answer. I'd track down what's actually happening first.

Some questions I'd want answered first:

Are my books all accessible in the GUI (confirms that at worst, we have orphan folders problem)

Yes, all my books can be accessed through the GUI.

If I change an author name, does the folder in the Library disappear under the old author name and reappear under the new name? (confirms Calibre can delete an old folder and create a new one)

No. This is what I've been posting all along. If I change an author name, it gets fixed within the GUI but leaves ugly stragglers behind in the file structure.

Are my bulk edits working correctly to change author - check each record individually with an individual metadata edit.

Debatable. When I make bulk edits to the author and authorsort fields so that they uniformly occur as:

"Firstname Lastname" and "Lastname, Firstname" they work if authorsort is populated by Calibre automatically

but if i do it where they occur as any other format, whether populated manually by me, or populated by calibre automatically

Sorting - also check each record's metadata individually (select and press "E" in GUI) and look at author_sort. Are they all correct? Look for spaces, extra commas at the end, odd non-ascii chars, etc.

When I fix/edit/make changes/however you want to say it in Calibre through the GUI, when I say I have fixed it, that means that Through the GUI, I can verify my edits. Meaning, if I change the record, click "ok" go back to the library list results, go back and click on the same record, open the GUI metadate edit window, and look at what I had just changed a moment ago, it will still be what I changed it TO and not be back at what i changed it FROM.

That said, if I changed all 100 something Anne McCaffrey records to be authorsort as "McCaffrey, Anne", if the author does not occur in "firstname lastname" manner and the authorsort was entered manually, how it will ACTUALLY sort is very, very different from what you would expect. aka, it sorts sometimes on A and sometimes on M and sometimes on God ONLY knows what.

This is a repeatable issue. It is consistent. It is fixable in one and only one way to my knowledge, and that is NOT to manually enter data into the authorsort field, and and/or or not to ask it to both sort on Lastname and display in Lastname, Firstname manner.

If you can see all your books, then what are these extra odd(possible orphan) folders? Note that each folder under an author has a record id at the end of the folder name. That id is also in the displayed info in GUI when that record is selected and you can see the comments. Track down if that id exists in the database or is it an orphan by checking the author or title and searching for it, then look at the id and cross-match.

Something will appear wonkified.

Based on later posts, I'm going to skip the above since it's advice on an older version of Calibre.