[davidfor]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

At least some metadata seems to come directly from the server, such as the series information. But I would have thought that if the server were supplying the author name then it would match the name shown on the website, so maybe it is updates some metadata from the kepub file after download?

I haven't noticed any strange names for my kepubs, so far they have been consistent with the epubs. Part of the reason for my belief in this is that Kobo are populating the database for recommendations and no for archived books. Both have no file on the device, so the info has to come from elsewhere.

I know Kobo are updating the series information on their books bit by bit, but it does seem a bit haphazard. Some series have only one book (not always the first) with series information, others have different series names for books in the same series, and many have the series information duplicated in the title or subtitle. It would be a real mess if we didn't have Calibre to sort it all out :-)

I have a series of books that Kobo think belong in three different series. I can sort of see why because to two of them are in a sub-series, but the name of the sub-series is slightly different for each. I'll have to check in case they came from different publishers. That could explain some discrepancies.

That might work, but I don't want to sideload any kepubs if I can possibly avoid it, it seems like that would open the way for a lot more things going wrong. I'll stick to the method of updating the database, and just try to avoid changing anthing that affects the interaction between device and server.

No, it won't work. Or at least not in the way you want it to. If you try to sideload a downloaded kepub, it isn't seen as the same book. For one thing, it will need an extension added to the file name. And anything not downloaded that is in the .kobo/kepub directory is ignored. And I think if they have DRM, they won't be read at all.