iPad Kobo 7.0 update, library re-downloading

[49Kat]

My entire library is in the process of being re-downloaded after updating this app on my iPad2. This is not something I was expecting when I downloaded the update. I just re-downloaded the whole thing yesterday after some troubleshooting I had done with the previous app version. That went well and it was fast because I happen to be at a location with good internet speed. The former version also downloaded one book at a time. Today, the new app is trying to download all of them at once, which is not going that well. I am not at all pleased with this and have provided feedback accordingly.

Oh, the bookshelf and bookmark customization is gone with the new version. This seems to be the way of all apps for iOS7.x

Hopefully, however, the overall functioning of the app will improve, once my entire library finishes downloading. I just thought I would warn people here in case your internet speed is slower or you're dealing with bandwidth caps. It's probably going to take a few hours to sort out this mess on my iPad2 and my mini.

[49Kat]

Basically, my entire library got wiped off both my devices and now has to be re-downloaded. The old app had an option to 'download all', this version doesn't seem to. The app is open, it looks like there's some sort of internet activity going on, but no books are being downloaded. I have a few that have partially downloaded, but the downloading doesn't continue until I actually open the book.

I read offline sometimes. I want my entire collection on my ipads.

This was an utterly terrible update! Wow...

[AnemicOak]

Sharkus, one of the devs for that app, posts fairly often in the Kobo forum. You might want to make mention of the issue there too...
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=165669

[49Kat]

Well, I'm taking a look at this and now I'm wondering if I'm not seeing things correctly here. The whole thing displays differently with this update. With other reading apps, I see the book cover with a blank bar at the bottom of the cover, which fills up and becomes solid and disappears as the book downloads. A blank bar like that would indicate a download in progress. This is what each book looks like now with the new Kobo app. I'm wondering now if this shows the progress of where I've read in the book, rather than the download progress. I'm not sure. I've got my iPad and my mini open in front of me right now, looking at the library. Some of the book covers look the same with the blue line in the blank bar being at the same point in both devices. However, I have a book on the mini with no bar at all and the same book on the ipad with a blank bar. So I just opened that book in the mini and closed it. Now the blank bar shows up on it as well.

It would be nice if all my books were actually still on the devices. (Could the developers not realize, though, that this bar does look like a download progress bar?)

[AnemicOak]

I just opened the app on my phone and the downloaded books show the progress bar you mention. Books that aren't downloaded have a translucent white circle with a downward pointing arrow in the lower right corner. Downloaded books will also be listed in the manage library area (I dislike that you can't switch between seeing only downloaded books and all books from the library screen and can only see all your books).

[49Kat]

OK, I just did the update on my iPhone, and I see what you mean. I don't keep all my books on my phone, only any that I am currently reading. So I can see the arrow for the books that haven't been downloaded.

I feel rather silly now, but I won't edit my original posts because otherwise this entire thread won't make any sense. (I guess if I'm going to get all hot under the collar about something and start holding forth about it in a public forum, I should be prepared to deal with the consequences.)

The misunderstanding came from my interpreting that bar as a download progress bar rather than a reading progress bar.

My apologies.

[Sharkus]

I had just written a very long post on things, but session timeout caused it to be lost, that'll teach me not to copy text of a post.

I see that you have had some answers, and I thought I'd pop in and offer up explanations too.

Download all is still there. Tap the "…" icon in the top right of the blue menu bar and it's the downward facing arrow.

Download progress is no longer a horizontal bar. It's switched to a circular icon in the bottom right of an items' cover image. When it's not downloaded it shows a downward facing arrow. When you tap on it to initiate a download it changes to a pause icon and begins to fill up, in a clockwise direction with a cyan colour, indicating the progress of a download. If you tap the icon it will pause or stop the download. For books the download is stopped, for magazines it is paused. Tapping again will restart a book download and resume a magazine download.
Once the download is complete the download icon is removed from the items cover image.

The bar beneath the book - it does not appear for magazines - appears post download. It is there to indicate your progress through the book. From what I recall, this may not be accurate until you open the book and return to the library. I believe this is because we don't have the actual progress of a book until it's been opened post-download.

As for your issue of the library being removed. That should not happen. As for why it happened, the truthful answer is I don't know exactly why. I would have needed to see logs from the app when this happened to try and figure out what was going on. There are situations where the app will remove all books, for example, if the server tells us that there are no books in the library, so it is possible that may have happened, but I'm just speculating.

I did run upgrade tests, on multiple devices, both pre and post release of the app and did not see the library failing to appear.

[49Kat]

Sharkus, I don't think my library actually was removed. When I saw those blank bars at the bottom of all those book covers and then a few of them getting partly filled, I thought all of my books were gone and they were being downloaded again. It was a misunderstanding on my part. In retrospect, I regret posting in such haste before I realized what was really going on. This thing with the bars is such a different look for this app, and in other apps, this is how the books appear during downloading, so this is where I misinterpreted what had happened with the Kobo app. Again, I apologize.

[Sharkus]

Originally Posted by 49Kat

Sharkus, I don't think my library actually was removed. When I saw those blank bars at the bottom of all those book covers and then a few of them getting partly filled, I thought all of my books were gone and they were being downloaded again. It was a misunderstanding on my part. In retrospect, I regret posting in such haste before I realized what was really going on. This thing with the bars is such a different look for this app, and in other apps, this is how the books appear during downloading, so this is where I misinterpreted what had happened with the Kobo app. Again, I apologize.

It's good to know that it seems the library was not removed, and I can see why given the previous versions behavior, that the new progress indicator could be seen as a download indicator that seemed to not be doing anything.

No need to apologize, you thought you had an issue, a rather serious one at that, and wanted satisfaction, and quickly. I would likely have done the same thing