Books sent by Calibre do not appear on my Kindle

[Margreet65]

Hi, I have been using Calibre for at least three years now. Lately I have a problem: when I upload books in Calibre on my pc (and sometimes convert epub to mobi) and send the mobi (or AZW3) books to my Kindle, simply by using the buttons at the top of the screen, Calibre indicates the books as available on my pc and on my Kindle. But in my Kindle library I cannot find any or most of them (sometimes some are copied correctly).
When I use Windows Explorer to copy files to my Kindle, they do appear in my Kindle library.
Does anybody know what I should do?

[kovidgoyal]

https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq...id-not-show-up

[Margreet65]

Thank you! I did read the FAQ but obviously overlooked this entry. I expect the resetting of the Kindle to take some time, so I will take some time next weekend to figure it all out. Thanx again!

[CGF-House]

I have the same problem since yesterday. I have 3200 books at my calibre and at my Fire tablet. And yesterday/today the newest 4 books aren't shown in the reading app at the fire. Only at the internal storage of the fire and with green indication at calibre.
I followed every step of the help, I was at the help center of amazon (with the great idea to de/new-register my kindle (which deleted most of my collections... so never do that, when you're not always connected via internet!!), but nothing helps.
So I only have now the problem, that the last 1000 books aren't at collections, collections are deleted AND I CAN'T TRANSFER the books. Neither in AZW3 nor in epub-format or in Mobi. Also not working via email (then it's only in documents, but not in the reading app.)

[chaley]

Originally Posted by CGF-House

I have the same problem since yesterday. I have 3200 books at my calibre and at my Fire tablet. And yesterday/today the newest 4 books aren't shown in the reading app at the fire. Only at the internal storage of the fire and with green indication at calibre.
I followed every step of the help, I was at the help center of amazon (with the great idea to de/new-register my kindle (which deleted most of my collections... so never do that, when you're not always connected via internet!!), but nothing helps.
So I only have now the problem, that the last 1000 books aren't at collections, collections are deleted AND I CAN'T TRANSFER the books. Neither in AZW3 nor in epub-format or in Mobi. Also not working via email (then it's only in documents, but not in the reading app.)

It seems that Amazon changed "something" in the Fire OS 5.6.1.0 update, making books placed in the "Books" folder in the device no longer appear in the recents or library lists. In some cases the Fire actually deletes azw3 book files! You can see some discussion and debugging of this problem in this thread (ignore that we were using CC to transfer the files). The last two posts are the most important. Quick summary: putting the books into a different folder seems to fix it. See the posts for a discussion of which folder you might choose to use.

I have no idea if this behavior is an Amazon mistake or if they are now purposely attacking side-loaded books.

[kovidgoyal]

@chaley: Sadly, I no longer have a working fire, could you test this change: https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibr...1a0b00fef0e893

to see if sending books via calibre works (it should now send to the kindle folder in preferences to the books folder)

[chaley]

@kovid: I see the folder list (documents, kindle, books). Is this what I should see? Sent azw3 and mobi files end up in Documents, which then are displayed in the library list.

[kovidgoyal]

Yes, the folder list should be documents, kindle, books not document, books, kindle after the change.

If you delete/rename the documents folder on the Fire it should send to the kindle folder rather than the books folder.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Yes, the folder list should be documents, kindle, books not document, books, kindle after the change.

If you delete/rename the documents folder on the Fire it should send to the kindle folder rather than the books folder.

It does indeed to this.

I note that calibre is perfectly happy to delete the "kindle" folder if you use calibre delete the last book in it. I am not sure that is the best behavior. I lost both "Documents" and "Kindle" that way during testing.

[kovidgoyal]

IIRC the kindle firmware will re-create those folders when needed, though I am fine with accepting a patch to prevent the deletion of the empty folder if it is named "documents" or "kindle".

[CGF-House]

Thanks!

I changed it like in your post written. It works.

Question: Should I transfer all the other books from the folder 'books' also in folder 'kindle' or can I let them in the old one? I have sorted them more or less all in sub collections at the fire and don't want to loose it.
And as long as it will not be possible one day, to transfer the calibre collections to the fire, I try not 'to change a running system'

[chaley]

Originally Posted by CGF-House

Question: Should I transfer all the other books from the folder 'books' also in folder 'kindle' or can I let them in the old one? I have sorted them more or less all in sub collections at the fire and don't want to loose it.
And as long as it will not be possible one day, to transfer the calibre collections to the fire, I try not 'to change a running system'

I agree, if it isn't broken, don't fix it. As far as I can tell, only books added after the Fire upgrade get "lost". Also, I suspect (at least "hope") that Amazon didn't intend this behavior and will fix it one day.

If you do decide to transfer books, I suggest that you delete them first from Books, reboot the Fire, resend them to Kindle, then reboot it again. During my experiments I saw cases where the Fire got confused when the same book was in two folders. The "reboots" are to force the Fire to scan the folders so it really knows what has changed.