Calibre & Kobo Utilities creating empty collections on new Aura ONE

[CharredScribe]

Hi all. I recently acquired a new Kobo (Aura ONE), in additon to my older Aura HD. I use Calibre and Kobo Utilities to create and manage collections. When I connected the Aura ONE, Calibre (through the Kobo plugin, I think) created collections for books that I never transferred. What I mean is that when I plugged in my new Kobo for the first time, I was just making sure that it connected to Calibre. I didn't load books or do anything at all. But when I disconnected the Aura ONE, it had created collections. They were empty, as I had not sent any books to the device, but the collections had been created. Since I would like to have different books on each device, the collections will not be the same so empty collections are not helpful. Is there a way to avoid this?

ETA: by collections, I am referring to bookshelves that I create on the device using Calibre so that books are grouped together. [end of ETA]

I do have multiple computers so a simple solution would be to just use a different computer for each different Kobo device, but I thought I would check if there was a setting in Calibre or Kobo Utilities that would allow me to address this.

Thanks in advance.

[davidfor]

Firstly, the Kobo Utilities plugin did not do this. It has absolutely no function that will create collections on the device. It can fiddle with the sort order (doesn't actually work on most firmware versions) and has function to cleanup duplicate collections created by problems on the Kobo servers (hasn't been needed for ages). But, it doesn't create collections.

The KoboTouch driver does create collections. As does the KoboTouchExtended driver. The later is using the KoboTouch driver for most of its function, so shares this.

But, the drivers will only create collections for books that are on the device. Or books being sent to the device. There is absolutely no way that the driver will create collections when there are no books on the device. Or, more correctly, no books on the device that match books in the calibre library. When creating the collections, it looks at the books on the device, or being sent, and works out what the collections should be and then creates the collections. If there are no books on the device, it means the drivers cannot do this. The driver has an option to delete empty collections, so this must be turned off.

As this is a new device, did you look at the collections list before connecting to the PC? Kobo will have created the collections. When you sync a device to the Kobo server, the collections are synced as well. No details of the sideoaded books are sent, but the collections names are. Any purchased books that are synced will be in the collections. There is no way to stop this except to not sync to the Kobo server. Or use separate Kobo accounts for each device. That will isolate the collections. But, this would only really work if you don't buy books from Kobo and want to sync them to the device.

If you are sure that it didn't happen this way, then I need some evidence. You would need to logout of the account on the Kobo device and take a screen shot of the collections list after the setup is finished. Then run calibre in debug mode the first time you connect the device and post the debug log.

[CharredScribe]

Thanks for your response, davidfor.

It's been a few years since I created the collections and I (incorrectly) assumed that I had used the Kobo Utilities plugin. I double-checked, however, and I see now that I used Calibre's custom column feature and Kobo Touch. Now I'm wondering if that's where the issue is: it might be because the Metadata Management option is set to automatic, rather than "on send" or manual.

Alternatively, it could be because of what you suggested: although I never connect my devices to wifi and I don't allow my devices to sync to Kobo anymore, when I setup my device, it started to sync automatically. Although I disconnected from wifi immediately, maybe it was enough time to create the collections before it downloaded any of the books on my Kobo account (I only sideload, but Kobo loves to add its books over and over )

I'll try again. I have now deleted all the empty collections (I did that before I posted here). I'll link up to Calibre and if they reappear again (with wifi off), then it's probably something in Calibre but if not, then it was probably the aborted Kobo sync.

[CharredScribe]

So I tried again, and I think it was the Kobo sync that started when I setup. I connected to Calibre with the wifi off but nothing happened. Then I logged out of my account on the Aura ONE, and when I logged back in using the wifi, the collections reappeared, and books purchased through the store also reappeared. Side-loaded books were not there, just lots of empty shelves. This is why I don't use Kobo sync - it mucks everything up.

Thanks davidfor. That was helpful.

[davidfor]

If you delete the collections on the device and sync to Kobo, the collections will be deleted from the server. The next sync for the other device should remove them from there. If you let the driver delete empty collections, exactly what it does depends on the state of the collection. If it hasn't been synced, then it is simply deleted. If it has been synced, it is marked as deleted and the the next sync will finish this off.

If you don't want the books to sync from Kobo, you can go into the library on the Kobo site and move the books to the archive. Or, delete the books on the device and select the "more destructive" sounding option. I can't think exactly what it says, but it will remove the books from the device and move them to the archive. If you want the books back, you restore them from the archive. If you don't want to see them again, there is a delete in the archive.