MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Ebooks on SD Card Don't Appear in Calibre

davidfor · 08-16-2012, 11:16 PM

Jewitch,

My Kobo Touch and calibre work with the two different SD cards I have. One is a 1GB Sandisk, the other a 4GB Kingston. The latter is a class 4 card, I don't know about the 1GB. I have tested both with firmware 1.9.17 and 2.0.2.

I have seen a lot of mention of problems with the Touch and SD cards. But, they always seem to be that the Touch can't handle them. I can't think of a post saying that calibre couldn't get to the SD card when the Touch was connected. But, I can think of a reason that calibre wouldn't display the books.

The Kobo driver in calibre doesn't look at the actual books to display them in the lists. It looks in the database on the Touch and a file called metadata.calibre that calibre creates. If a book is not in these places, it will either be missing from the lists, or will have incomplete information. This can mean the book is on the device list, but isn't matched against the book in the library.

If the Touch is having trouble with a book, or the card, then books might not be in its database. The way they get there, is that you put a book on the card or main memory, disconnect the Touch and then it processes the books adding any it hasn't seen before. If this goes wrong, for any reason, the book and any that are after it (I don't know what order they are processed) will not be in the database. If you reconnect the Touch and start calibre, only the books that were processed correctly will show in the device list. So, missing books could be because of a corrupt book or a problem with the Touch reading them from the card.

How to prove which is the problem? Only trial and error. Try a different card or different books. Putting the same books in the main memory of the touch and seeing if they are added to the Touches library, that will eliminate them as the problem. But, if only some go in, it is trial and error to work out which one.

The images are probably a related thing. With firmware 1.9.17, the Touch generated five images for the cover when it first processed the books. If this failed, or the images were removed, you would see the default book cover. I suppose this could happen if the Touch could extract the metadata it needs from the book but couldn't extract the cover. I suppose a performance problem reading the card could cause this.

With FW 2.0.x, the cover images are generated on the fly. I frequently see a default cover (just the title and author) displayed for a few seconds and then replaced by the actual cover. I don't know what happens the Touch can't generate a cover image from the book or if the image became corrupted in some way.

With both firmware's, you can get calibre to upload the cover. But, this only works if the Touch has the book in its database and has generated the images. In these circumstances, calibre will replace the cover when you upload the book again to the Touch.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if any of this helps. Things I can think to try are:

- Copy over the books to the SD card in small batches and disconnect the Touch for each. This gives the Touch a chance to process them in batches and that might help. But, this means you can't pull the card out of the Touch or it will "forget" about the books and reprocess them when it is inserted. And you are back where you started.

- With the Touch connected, but calibre not running, delete the files "driveinfo.calibre" and "metadata.calibre". If this is out of sync with what is actually on the card, it could cause a problem. Calibre will rebuild these files when started and it sees the Touch, but it might not show that a book on the Touch matches a book in the library.

08-16-2012, 11:16 PM	#3
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,905 Karma: 47303824 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	Jewitch, My Kobo Touch and calibre work with the two different SD cards I have. One is a 1GB Sandisk, the other a 4GB Kingston. The latter is a class 4 card, I don't know about the 1GB. I have tested both with firmware 1.9.17 and 2.0.2. I have seen a lot of mention of problems with the Touch and SD cards. But, they always seem to be that the Touch can't handle them. I can't think of a post saying that calibre couldn't get to the SD card when the Touch was connected. But, I can think of a reason that calibre wouldn't display the books. The Kobo driver in calibre doesn't look at the actual books to display them in the lists. It looks in the database on the Touch and a file called metadata.calibre that calibre creates. If a book is not in these places, it will either be missing from the lists, or will have incomplete information. This can mean the book is on the device list, but isn't matched against the book in the library. If the Touch is having trouble with a book, or the card, then books might not be in its database. The way they get there, is that you put a book on the card or main memory, disconnect the Touch and then it processes the books adding any it hasn't seen before. If this goes wrong, for any reason, the book and any that are after it (I don't know what order they are processed) will not be in the database. If you reconnect the Touch and start calibre, only the books that were processed correctly will show in the device list. So, missing books could be because of a corrupt book or a problem with the Touch reading them from the card. How to prove which is the problem? Only trial and error. Try a different card or different books. Putting the same books in the main memory of the touch and seeing if they are added to the Touches library, that will eliminate them as the problem. But, if only some go in, it is trial and error to work out which one. The images are probably a related thing. With firmware 1.9.17, the Touch generated five images for the cover when it first processed the books. If this failed, or the images were removed, you would see the default book cover. I suppose this could happen if the Touch could extract the metadata it needs from the book but couldn't extract the cover. I suppose a performance problem reading the card could cause this. With FW 2.0.x, the cover images are generated on the fly. I frequently see a default cover (just the title and author) displayed for a few seconds and then replaced by the actual cover. I don't know what happens the Touch can't generate a cover image from the book or if the image became corrupted in some way. With both firmware's, you can get calibre to upload the cover. But, this only works if the Touch has the book in its database and has generated the images. In these circumstances, calibre will replace the cover when you upload the book again to the Touch. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if any of this helps. Things I can think to try are: - Copy over the books to the SD card in small batches and disconnect the Touch for each. This gives the Touch a chance to process them in batches and that might help. But, this means you can't pull the card out of the Touch or it will "forget" about the books and reprocess them when it is inserted. And you are back where you started. - With the Touch connected, but calibre not running, delete the files "driveinfo.calibre" and "metadata.calibre". If this is out of sync with what is actually on the card, it could cause a problem. Calibre will rebuild these files when started and it sees the Touch, but it might not show that a book on the Touch matches a book in the library.