Quote:
Originally Posted by Celler6
Hi....thanks guys...the books were all direct downloads from Kobo - that is why it surprises me that this cannot be done...
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I read a lot of books purchased and downloaded from Kobo. The reading position, and annotations are syncing between all my Kobo devices, the desktop application on Windows 10 and the Kobo apps on both my iPad and Android phones. For it to work, WiFi must be on and connected for all the devices.
Other than during a full sync, the status for a book is synced automatically, but is triggered by certain actions. On the devices, each time you open or close a book, let the device go to sleep while reading or wake the device, it will attempt to sync the reading status of that book. There might be other triggers, but these are the ones I know of. If you open the book or wake the device and it finds that the reading position was updated by another device or app, you will be prompted to go to the new page.
The desktop and other apps work roughly the same, but I think they have different trigger points. The desktop app might only sync when you open it. The iOS app has a rule to prevent it syncing to often.
If you open a new book on one device, it won't show as reading on the others or the apps until syncs have been done. Or you open the book on the other devices or apps. If you don't do the sync, the other devices and apps won't know about the status change.
Within the last month, I have tested this. I opened a book on a device, then closed the cover. Then I opened it on each of the other devices and apps and it either went directly to that page, or asked me to go to the new page. On one, I turned a few pages, closed the book and went back t the first device. When I opened the cover, after a few seconds, it prompted me to go to the new page. My son uses a Glo HD signed into my account, and I see the books he is reading appear on the home screen with changing reading percent.
For this to work, you must have a known WiFi network available. If you do not, or something goes wrong with the connection, then the status won't be synced to the server. No error will be displayed as this is a quiet background task. The sync isn't queued, it is skipped until the next time it is triggered by one of the above actions.
There is a deficiency in the reading status sync for pre-4.0 firmware. If you finish a book, that is synced, but when you sync the other devices, the books is marked as being 0% read. Later this gets synced back to the original device. This was fixed with 4.0, but if you have a mix of devices and versions, it can still happen.
From what I see, this just works. If it isn't for you, then you need to check the networking is OK. Then make sure everything is signed into the same Kobo account, and that syncs are actually happening.