Book title changes not being applied to dl' books on Kobo

Boneist · 04-01-2016, 02:45 AM

Hi,

I have a Kobo Aura H2O, and I managed to get everything set up as I want it last night (series info displayed under the book title, collections added, etc).

However, there is one remaining fly in the ointment, and my google-fu must be weak: I've updated the book titles in calibre to strip out series information. This shows up correctly for all books when I view the books on my device in calibre, and also for side-loaded books on the kobo itself.

However, books that were downloaded directly onto the kobo from Kobo's website are showing up with the old name.

E.g. Where calibre has "Southern Charm" in both the library and device views, on the kobo, it shows as "Southern Charm - Max Porter, #2".

As far as I can tell, metadata (set to automatic management) has been uploaded correctly, as the books show up in the correct collection.

Is this just a quirk of the Kobo-direct-download that I have to live with, or have I missed setting an option or something to override the title on the device?

GeoffR · 04-01-2016, 03:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boneist

E.g. Where calibre has "Southern Charm" in both the library and device views, on the kobo, it shows as "Southern Charm - Max Porter, #2".

On Kobo devices books can have a subtitle as well as a title. If a book has a subtitle then it is displayed in the device library as "Title - Subtitle". Changing the title in calibre has no effect on the subtitle.

I don't know if there is any way to change the subtitle from Calibre, but if you can edit the device's database ".kobo/KoboReader.sqlite" manually then you can remove the subtitle with this command:

Code:

UPDATE content SET SubTitle=NULL WHERE BookID IS NULL AND IsDownloaded=='true' AND Title=='Southern Charm';

davidfor · 04-01-2016, 05:36 AM

The Kobo driver does not update the metadata on the device except for the series information. This is a deliberate design choice, but might change in the future. If you want to update the metadata, you can use my Kobo Utilities plugin to do this, plus a lot of other things.

But, as GeoffR mentioned, the downloaded books can have subtitles. To empty this, you need to run the SQL statement that he posted. I don't know why I don't have the utilities doing this.

Boneist · 04-01-2016, 04:20 PM

Thanks GeoffR and Davidfor for the info. Once I've worked out how to open the database and run queries, I'll do the update! I'll also look into the Kobo Utilities plugin too (any chance of getting the functionality added in there ad some point, pretty please? *{;-) ).

Boneist · 04-01-2016, 05:12 PM

Ok, so getting into the database was surprisingly easy (hurrah!). I set the subtitles to be null as per the above update statement, but it looks like the titles in the db don't reflect the titles that are in Calibre *{:-/

I've tried refreshing the cached metadata, but from what Davidfor said, maybe that was a tad pointless?

Do I need to manually update the titles in the db one-by-one, or is there a cleverer way of updating the titles from Calibre? I'm a tad confused, as I'm pretty sure the titles were being correctly set from Calibre (even for downloaded books) before I started faffing around yesterday. I installed the kobo plugins required to set the series info in the display and maybe one or two other kobo related plugins; maybe that has had an impact?

davidfor · 04-01-2016, 08:56 PM

When you put a book on the Kobo device, it is processes to extract the metadata. This is put into the database and used in the library lists. The only supported way to change this is to remove the book and add it again. Otherwise, you have to update the database in some manner. The simplest way is using my Kobo Utilities plugin. The "Update metadata in the device library" function will do this for all books in the calibre library and on the device.

04-01-2016, 02:45 AM	#1
Boneist Enthusiast Posts: 33 Karma: 208 Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: UK Device: Kobo Aura H2O	Book title changes not being applied to dl' books on Kobo Hi, I have a Kobo Aura H2O, and I managed to get everything set up as I want it last night (series info displayed under the book title, collections added, etc). However, there is one remaining fly in the ointment, and my google-fu must be weak: I've updated the book titles in calibre to strip out series information. This shows up correctly for all books when I view the books on my device in calibre, and also for side-loaded books on the kobo itself. However, books that were downloaded directly onto the kobo from Kobo's website are showing up with the old name. E.g. Where calibre has "Southern Charm" in both the library and device views, on the kobo, it shows as "Southern Charm - Max Porter, #2". As far as I can tell, metadata (set to automatic management) has been uploaded correctly, as the books show up in the correct collection. Is this just a quirk of the Kobo-direct-download that I have to live with, or have I missed setting an option or something to override the title on the device?

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04-01-2016, 05:36 AM	#3
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,905 Karma: 47303824 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	The Kobo driver does not update the metadata on the device except for the series information. This is a deliberate design choice, but might change in the future. If you want to update the metadata, you can use my Kobo Utilities plugin to do this, plus a lot of other things. But, as GeoffR mentioned, the downloaded books can have subtitles. To empty this, you need to run the SQL statement that he posted. I don't know why I don't have the utilities doing this.

04-01-2016, 04:20 PM	#4
Boneist Enthusiast Posts: 33 Karma: 208 Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: UK Device: Kobo Aura H2O	Thanks GeoffR and Davidfor for the info. Once I've worked out how to open the database and run queries, I'll do the update! I'll also look into the Kobo Utilities plugin too (any chance of getting the functionality added in there ad some point, pretty please? *{;-) ).

04-01-2016, 05:12 PM	#5
Boneist Enthusiast Posts: 33 Karma: 208 Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: UK Device: Kobo Aura H2O	Ok, so getting into the database was surprisingly easy (hurrah!). I set the subtitles to be null as per the above update statement, but it looks like the titles in the db don't reflect the titles that are in Calibre *{:-/ I've tried refreshing the cached metadata, but from what Davidfor said, maybe that was a tad pointless? Do I need to manually update the titles in the db one-by-one, or is there a cleverer way of updating the titles from Calibre? I'm a tad confused, as I'm pretty sure the titles were being correctly set from Calibre (even for downloaded books) before I started faffing around yesterday. I installed the kobo plugins required to set the series info in the display and maybe one or two other kobo related plugins; maybe that has had an impact?

04-01-2016, 08:56 PM	#6
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,905 Karma: 47303824 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	When you put a book on the Kobo device, it is processes to extract the metadata. This is put into the database and used in the library lists. The only supported way to change this is to remove the book and add it again. Otherwise, you have to update the database in some manner. The simplest way is using my Kobo Utilities plugin. The "Update metadata in the device library" function will do this for all books in the calibre library and on the device.

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