Thread: Can't add read date column name to sync
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Old 05-31-2015, 05:38 AM   #8
chaley
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Posts: 12,495
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Notts, England
Device: Kobo Libra 2
Quote:
Originally Posted by Purple Lady View Post
I think I may know why the metadata was being sent again. If I connect to Calibre on my laptop and then connect to the pc again, will that trigger the metadata to be sent again? I just connected to my laptop again and it sent metadata.
This is a very complicated issue.

There are two "metadata sends", one from CC to calibre and one from calibre to CC. The first one is necessary to fill calibre's CC metadata cache, and should happen only once when using a single calibre computer. The second sends changed metadata from calibre to CC, and happens whenever the last modified date for a book in calibre's database disagrees with the date CC has.

Connecting CC to computer A then connecting to computer B can force one of the first sends, CC to calibre, because the cache on the computer B would not have been updated when connecting to computer A. As for the second send type, if we assume the following steps:
  1. Ensure that the calibre libraries on machines A and B are copies of each other.
  2. Connect CC to machine A and let it settle. Disconnect.
  3. Connect CC to machine B and let it settle. Disconnect. At this point, connecting CC to either machine should not cause a metadata send unless you change something in calibre.
  4. Change something in calibre on machine A, such as adding a custom column.
  5. Connect CC to machine A. It will send all metadata from calibre to CC.
  6. Disconnect CC and shut down calibre.
  7. Copy the calibre library to machine B.
  8. Connect CC to machine B. CC will send its metadata to calibre because the cache on machine B doesn't know about the work on machine A.
  9. Reconnect to machine A without having changed anything in calibre. There should be no metadata send in either direction.
  10. Reconnect to machine B without having changed anything in calibre. There should be no metadata send in either direction.
Quote:
The Calibre library on my laptop is a copy of the one on my pc, and I just looked at the files - the opf file has the date of when I copied it so it's different than the pc. I'm on vacation without my tech support - I'll have to figure out how to copy the library from dropbox in win 7 without changing the dates.
CC doesn't care about file times unless you are using its sync-books feature. If you are syncing changed books then changing mod times could force all sorts of data exchange.

As for copying and keeping the dates, a quality sync program will do that. I use Free File Sync, but there are several others including the DOS command "xcopy".

And FWIW: I leave my library in dropbox and let calibre use it there. I of course must be careful of the usual suspects, not to access it on two computers and to wait for any syncing to complete before firing up calibre. I also have my calibre config folder in dropbox so I have the same settings and plugins on all my computers running calibre. This second requires a bit of DOS scripting to set environment variables.
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