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maybedog · 08-02-2014, 08:49 AM

I've had this happen, too, and I've come up with several causes, most user error. One reason is what I think is a bug but is probably considered user error:

When I combine two books, Calibre doesn't check if the book is still in the directory. So if I select the book first that is a record without a corresponding book and then the other, Calibre just deletes the second format. [Example: I've lost the book already. The empty book folder is still there. I recover the book and just readd it. Now I have two records. I select the first one and the second one and choose combine and delete. Instead of making sure there is at least one copy, Calibre will delete the second copy so I still am left without a copy. I have to be sure to select the second one, first.] Since Calibre is supposed to *combine*, I expected Calibre to check and make sure all the formats were there. The reason I did it this way was because the original record had all the revised metadata. If I choose the second one first, then I lose much of the revised metadata as it is overwritten by the original metadata. To get around this, I have to manually add the book to the right folder. But the problem is that if the book is a different file size, like I've modified it externally to remove unused media files, the metadata isn't updated and Calibre has the wrong information.

The other two things I've come up with so far are that I was using a cloud drive to back up my files. This ran in the background and somehow deleted the files while syncing. However, this has happened with two different cloud storage sites which isn't supposed to happen and doesn't happen with any other kind of file, so I wonder if there's some bug in Calibre. I don't know what it could be, though.

The other cause is when I update metadata. Sometimes Calibre can't delete the old directory. So I might see both a "J.E. Doe" and "J. E. Doe" folders which are hard to distinguish at first glance. If I have other authors with initials starting with "J", I may miss one of these in the list. Or I switch the authors and the book is then moved to the folder for the author that is now listed first. The book is still there, just looks like it's missing when I look under the wrong name.

08-02-2014, 08:49 AM	#27
maybedog Enthusiast Posts: 30 Karma: 8758 Join Date: Aug 2012 Device: Kobo Aura	I've had this happen, too, and I've come up with several causes, most user error. One reason is what I think is a bug but is probably considered user error: When I combine two books, Calibre doesn't check if the book is still in the directory. So if I select the book first that is a record without a corresponding book and then the other, Calibre just deletes the second format. [Example: I've lost the book already. The empty book folder is still there. I recover the book and just readd it. Now I have two records. I select the first one and the second one and choose combine and delete. Instead of making sure there is at least one copy, Calibre will delete the second copy so I still am left without a copy. I have to be sure to select the second one, first.] Since Calibre is supposed to combine, I expected Calibre to check and make sure all the formats were there. The reason I did it this way was because the original record had all the revised metadata. If I choose the second one first, then I lose much of the revised metadata as it is overwritten by the original metadata. To get around this, I have to manually add the book to the right folder. But the problem is that if the book is a different file size, like I've modified it externally to remove unused media files, the metadata isn't updated and Calibre has the wrong information. The other two things I've come up with so far are that I was using a cloud drive to back up my files. This ran in the background and somehow deleted the files while syncing. However, this has happened with two different cloud storage sites which isn't supposed to happen and doesn't happen with any other kind of file, so I wonder if there's some bug in Calibre. I don't know what it could be, though. The other cause is when I update metadata. Sometimes Calibre can't delete the old directory. So I might see both a "J.E. Doe" and "J. E. Doe" folders which are hard to distinguish at first glance. If I have other authors with initials starting with "J", I may miss one of these in the list. Or I switch the authors and the book is then moved to the folder for the author that is now listed first. The book is still there, just looks like it's missing when I look under the wrong name.