books which won't open on my Kobo

[Clio]

Hello,

I have a Kobo Libra 2, which I'm very happy with. I've converted most of my ebooks and put them on the Kobo, and most of them are fine.

But recently, I bought a series of 12 ebooks. They are all by the same author and published by the same publisher. I converted them all, in exactly the same I've done with all my other ebooks, and put them on my Kobo. Some of them were fine. But 4 of them will not work on the Kobo. When I try to open them, one of them shows me the metadata page and then closes and says I've finished the book. The rest of them won't open at all, and I just get an error message saying it can't open.

I tried deleting them and starting over - reconverting and resending to my Kobo, but I got the same result.

Has anyone else experienced this? Or does anyone have any other ideas I could try?

Thanks in advance for any ideas or suggestions!

[Ned]

Try converting from epub to epub on Calibre. (not a typo) and deleting the original copy from Calibre.
Oddly enough that often cures problems.

[Pajamaman]

Try converting from epub to mobi, deleteing the old epub, and convert the mobi to an epub. The formats are so different, it removes almost everything that might contain a problem.

[JSWolf]

Try converting these 4 eBooks to KePub and try that.

[DNSB]

Personally, I would do the epub => epub conversion since that will have the least effect on the book. if that doesn't work, try the epub => mobi => epub conversion which will lose quite a bit of formatting but will also lose errors that might survive the epub => epub conversion.

Converting to kepub does little to correct errors other than not converting books with too many errors.

As usual, YMMV.

[Clio]

Hello, and thank you for the replies! I'm grateful for the help. I have tried what was suggested. I did the epub to epub conversion. And I then tried epub to mobi to epub. When I tried that, the book would open, but it had affected the formatting so much that trying to read it was not an enjoyable experience.

Does it make a difference that the original format was AZW3?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Clio

Does it make a difference that the original format was AZW3?

Not especially. I've converted azw3 that are fine.
But I've had ebooks (mobi, azw3 or epub) with overly complicated and sometimes bad HTML/CSS/Formatting. Worst is when someone slavishly copying an over prettified paper book. So I then either edit the epub or sometimes edit the azw3 before conversion.
I prefer old mobi format for PD ebooks as then the epub conversion is simpler and easier to clean, whereas some epubs and big name publisher azw3 are crazy. Ask jswolf!

But I've had years of experience DTP, programming, HTML and CSS even before mobi, azw3 & epub ebooks existed, so the Calibre Editor doesn't bother me.

[criscros]

Originally Posted by Clio

Hello, and thank you for the replies! I'm grateful for the help. I have tried what was suggested. I did the epub to epub conversion. And I then tried epub to mobi to epub. When I tried that, the book would open, but it had affected the formatting so much that trying to read it was not an enjoyable experience.

Does it make a difference that the original format was AZW3?

When you open them in the calibre viewer, is the formatting messed up or is only when you open them on your ereader. If so, which driver are you using in calibre?

[JSWolf]

If any of these are self-published eBooks, then they can possibly be a right mess with a lot of media queries that won't work in ePub.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If any of these are self-published eBooks, then they can possibly be a right mess with a lot of media queries that won't work in ePub.

But that can be true of big Publishers too.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

But that can be true of big Publishers too.

Much less so then self-published.

Vellum is one program that can make a right mess with all kinds of media queries.

I don't recall the book or author, but I've seen one eBook from Amazon where the CSS was nothing but media queries. I don't know what disaster of a program created that mess.

[Clio]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If any of these are self-published eBooks, then they can possibly be a right mess with a lot of media queries that won't work in ePub.

Hello,

Thanks! No, these aren't self-published. I've bought a few books published by this publisher before, and these 4 are the only ones where there has been any problem.

[Clio]

Originally Posted by criscros

When you open them in the calibre viewer, is the formatting messed up or is only when you open them on your ereader. If so, which driver are you using in calibre?

Hello,

They seem to look ok in the Calibre viewer. I think I'm using the newest (or nearly the newest) version of Calibre.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Clio

Hello,

Thanks! No, these aren't self-published. I've bought a few books published by this publisher before, and these 4 are the only ones where there has been any problem.

What books are these in case anyone may have them and can take a look at the code?

[criscros]

Originally Posted by Clio

Hello,

They seem to look ok in the Calibre viewer. I think I'm using the newest (or nearly the newest) version of Calibre.

Which Kobo driver is being used by calibre? If you go to preferences, plugins and look at device interfaces, scroll down to the k's, the drivers you have installed will be listed there.

You should also try dragging and dropping the epub to your reader instead of sending through calibre and see how it looks. If it looks okay, it might be the driver calibre is using.