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Rellwood · 03-08-2017, 07:27 PM

@stumped,

Yes, there is a bit of a ouroboros effect with the way I deal with the library.

It all traces back to my over enthusiastic changing, scrapping, organizing, etc. of too many libraries that end up being sent to various computers, dropboxes, usb drives, etc.

Now when I come across these little time capsules, I always just add the library to see what is in them because over time my metadata has become unreliable (kind of like a recording of a recording of a recording and then finding the original). Recently I went through all my sources and just grabbed every possible library I could find and basically connected to them to see what was in them. I think there are 40 or 50 of them.

I open a library, copy the books to another library, then go to delete but when Calibre takes me to the folder, instead of finding two db and json files, there are numerous book files.

So I have an empty library that is filled with hidden books. I learned some time back that if I just add the library to itself, I end up with all the hidden books, and their metadata. However, last night it was out of control. An example is Cleaned up library 2, and Cleaned up library 2! both of them were last modified in 2015.

They initially had 3500 books or so, but they ended up being that type of library where all the book files are not with the .opf files (which annoys me to no end since I can't find a quick way to just merge them back together). So I sent the books from one library to the other and using overwrite to just thin down the numbers. When I went to remove the library, there were so many files, I wondered if I was removing the right one. I ended up "cannibalizing' it, and I was shocked to see that there were another 3500 books bring added...So I added them, and again sent them to the other library, and AGAIN found more files in the folder. This time there were 12,000 books....

I ended up doing a restore database just to knock it out. I have no idea how it happened, but it seems like each title had been duplicated but there were about 5 or 6 different title/series/series index was for each book, then there were book files not with the .opf files, and then there were just duplicates. This happened with a couple of libraries, and right now I am weeding through so many of them that I can't even copy to some of them because there is no room for Calibre to add them to the list of copy to libraries.

This whole thing is like Greek Mythology. Hydras and ouroboros and Sysifus combined.

Sorry that was so long...

03-08-2017, 07:27 PM	#9
Rellwood Library Breeder (She/Her) Posts: 1,242 Karma: 1937891 Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Fullerton, California Device: Paperwhite 2015 (2), PW 2024 (12 GEN), PW 2023 (11 GEN), Scribe (1st)	@stumped, Yes, there is a bit of a ouroboros effect with the way I deal with the library. It all traces back to my over enthusiastic changing, scrapping, organizing, etc. of too many libraries that end up being sent to various computers, dropboxes, usb drives, etc. Now when I come across these little time capsules, I always just add the library to see what is in them because over time my metadata has become unreliable (kind of like a recording of a recording of a recording and then finding the original). Recently I went through all my sources and just grabbed every possible library I could find and basically connected to them to see what was in them. I think there are 40 or 50 of them. I open a library, copy the books to another library, then go to delete but when Calibre takes me to the folder, instead of finding two db and json files, there are numerous book files. So I have an empty library that is filled with hidden books. I learned some time back that if I just add the library to itself, I end up with all the hidden books, and their metadata. However, last night it was out of control. An example is Cleaned up library 2, and Cleaned up library 2! both of them were last modified in 2015. They initially had 3500 books or so, but they ended up being that type of library where all the book files are not with the .opf files (which annoys me to no end since I can't find a quick way to just merge them back together). So I sent the books from one library to the other and using overwrite to just thin down the numbers. When I went to remove the library, there were so many files, I wondered if I was removing the right one. I ended up "cannibalizing' it, and I was shocked to see that there were another 3500 books bring added...So I added them, and again sent them to the other library, and AGAIN found more files in the folder. This time there were 12,000 books.... I ended up doing a restore database just to knock it out. I have no idea how it happened, but it seems like each title had been duplicated but there were about 5 or 6 different title/series/series index was for each book, then there were book files not with the .opf files, and then there were just duplicates. This happened with a couple of libraries, and right now I am weeding through so many of them that I can't even copy to some of them because there is no room for Calibre to add them to the list of copy to libraries. This whole thing is like Greek Mythology. Hydras and ouroboros and Sysifus combined. Sorry that was so long...