Aura My kobo doesn't show all my ebooks from Calibre

[Lilyeuhh]

I have been using Calibre (on my Macbook) with Kobo e-readers for 2 years now.
I got a Kobo Aura last year, and it has been working fine until now. I reset my Kobo aura (because I had inadvertedly created 2 libraries in Calibre and I didn't know in which library each ebook was) and re-uploaded all my ebooks (300+ epubs) into the main memory using Calibre (in Calibre, all of them are ticked as imported into the device) but only 23 are actually displayed in the Kobo library. I have read several similar issues on various Kobo devices and have tried the different solutions but they don't work for me.

I use Calibre 2.41 and the latest Kobo firmware (3.18.0)

please!

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Lilyeuhh

I have been using Calibre (on my Macbook) with Kobo e-readers for 2 years now.
I got a Kobo Aura last year, and it has been working fine until now. I reset my Kobo aura (because I had inadvertedly created 2 libraries in Calibre and I didn't know in which library each ebook was) and re-uploaded all my ebooks (300+ epubs) into the main memory using Calibre (in Calibre, all of them are ticked as imported into the device) but only 23 are actually displayed in the Kobo library. I have read several similar issues on various Kobo devices and have tried the different solutions but they don't work for me.

I use Calibre 2.41 and the latest Kobo firmware (3.18.0)

please!

If you loaded all 300+ at the same time, it's possible that one of the books is having an issue and causing the problem. If I were you, I would take all of the books off of the device and reload them in batches of 20, checking to make sure that they appear on the device after each batch.

Shari

[Lilyeuhh]

I've tried to reset the Kobo and upload 14 ebooks, but not a single one shows on the device (and yes, the "show downloaded books only" option is off), although they appear in the Kobo Aura folder on my laptop and on Calibre.

The only successful way to put everything into my Kobo at the moment is to copy/paste my Calibre library folder into the Kobo folder, but without the covers/metadata I modified with Calibre.
Is it a Kobo firmware/Calibre software update issue? Am I the only one having this problem?

[eschwartz]

Try using connect to folder or save to disk to add the books to your Kobo.

I have no idea why the Kobo wouldn't see your books when calibre sends them via the Kobo plugin, but at least this would allow you to have your updated metadata.



Hopefully someone who knows more about the Kobo-calibre interaction can provide more info, though.

[Lilyeuhh]

I've just tried a trick from an old (2010) thread on this forum. I converted all my ePubs into epubs again and the following error message popped up for each file that didn't appear previously on my Kobo:

Resolved conversion options
calibre version: 2.41.0
{'asciiize': False,
'author_sort': None,
'authors': None,
'base_font_size': 0.0,
'book_producer': None,
'change_justification': u'original',
'chapter': u"//*[((name()='h1' or name()='h2') and re:test(., '\\s*((chapter|book|section|part)\\s+)|((prolog|pr ologue|epilogue)(\\s+|$))', 'i')) or @class = 'chapter']",
'chapter_mark': u'pagebreak',
'comments': None,
'cover': u'/var/folders/ck/b5gtndc96gj1xk9wn3gj5vph0000gn/T/calibre_2.41.0_tmp_iU38Un/XnLxU6.jpeg',
'debug_pipeline': None,
'dehyphenate': True,
'delete_blank_paragraphs': True,
'disable_font_rescaling': False,
'dont_split_on_page_breaks': False,
'duplicate_links_in_toc': False,
'embed_all_fonts': False,
'embed_font_family': None,
'enable_heuristics': False,
'epub_flatten': False,
'epub_inline_toc': False,
'epub_toc_at_end': False,
'expand_css': False,
'extra_css': None,
'extract_to': None,
'filter_css': u'',
'fix_indents': True,
'flow_size': 260,
'font_size_mapping': None,
'format_scene_breaks': True,
'html_unwrap_factor': 0.4,
'input_encoding': None,
'input_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.InputProfile object at 0x10a90b950>,
'insert_blank_line': False,
'insert_blank_line_size': 0.5,
'insert_metadata': False,
'isbn': None,
'italicize_common_cases': True,
'keep_ligatures': False,
'language': None,
'level1_toc': None,
'level2_toc': None,
'level3_toc': None,
'line_height': 0.0,
'linearize_tables': False,
'margin_bottom': 5.0,
'margin_left': 5.0,
'margin_right': 5.0,
'margin_top': 5.0,
'markup_chapter_headings': True,
'max_toc_links': 50,
'minimum_line_height': 120.0,
'no_chapters_in_toc': False,
'no_default_epub_cover': False,
'no_inline_navbars': False,
'no_svg_cover': False,
'output_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.KoboReaderOutput object at 0x10a91b1d0>,
'page_breaks_before': '/',
'prefer_metadata_cover': False,
'preserve_cover_aspect_ratio': False,
'pretty_print': True,
'pubdate': None,
'publisher': None,
'rating': None,
'read_metadata_from_opf': u'/var/folders/ck/b5gtndc96gj1xk9wn3gj5vph0000gn/T/calibre_2.41.0_tmp_iU38Un/C5uRT5.opf',
'remove_fake_margins': True,
'remove_first_image': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing_indent_size': 1.5,
'renumber_headings': True,
'replace_scene_breaks': u'',
'search_replace': '[]',
'series': None,
'series_index': None,
'smarten_punctuation': False,
'sr1_replace': None,
'sr1_search': None,
'sr2_replace': None,
'sr2_search': None,
'sr3_replace': None,
'sr3_search': None,
'start_reading_at': None,
'subset_embedded_fonts': False,
'tags': None,
'timestamp': None,
'title': None,
'title_sort': None,
'toc_filter': None,
'toc_threshold': 6,
'toc_title': None,
'unsmarten_punctuation': False,
'unwrap_lines': True,
'use_auto_toc': False,
'verbose': 2}
Python function terminated unexpectedly: Not a ZIP file
InputFormatPlugin: EPUB Input running
on /var/folders/ck/b5gtndc96gj1xk9wn3gj5vph0000gn/T/calibre_2.41.0_tmp_iU38Un/rkswjZ.epub
EPUB appears to be invalid ZIP file, trying a more forgiving ZIP parser
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages/calibre/ebooks/conversion/plugins/epub_input.py", line 190, in convert
File "site-packages/calibre/utils/zipfile.py", line 751, in __init__
File "site-packages/calibre/utils/zipfile.py", line 786, in _GetContents
File "site-packages/calibre/utils/zipfile.py", line 801, in _RealGetContents
BadZipfile: File is not a zip file

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Applications/calibre.app/Contents/Resources/Python/lib/python2.7/site.py", line 209, in main
return run_entry_point()
File "/Applications/calibre.app/Contents/Resources/Python/lib/python2.7/site.py", line 114, in run_entry_point
return getattr(pmod, func)()
File "site-packages/calibre/utils/ipc/worker.py", line 193, in main
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/convert/gui_conversion.py", line 31, in gui_convert_override
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/convert/gui_conversion.py", line 25, in gui_convert
File "site-packages/calibre/ebooks/conversion/plumber.py", line 1042, in run
File "site-packages/calibre/customize/conversion.py", line 241, in __call__
File "site-packages/calibre/ebooks/conversion/plugins/epub_input.py", line 197, in convert
File "site-packages/calibre/utils/localunzip.py", line 223, in extractall
File "site-packages/calibre/utils/localunzip.py", line 210, in _extractall
ValueError: Not a ZIP file

Can someone translate this for me? ^-^

[Lilyeuhh]

Ok it seems that my library is corrupted, I can't open missing ePubs in Calibre viewer...
"Cannot open, not a ZIP file"
Why this message, my file is an ePub, and it also appears in the library folder.

[eschwartz]

The file extension (epub) and where the file is stored (library folder) have no bearing on whether the file contents have been scribbled over.
If the file is corrupted, no wonder your Kobo didn't see it. calibre can't see it either.



Hopefully you have a backup from before the files were corrupted.
You might also try a ZIP repair program (there are a bunch floating around the internet).

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Lilyeuhh

I've tried to reset the Kobo and upload 14 ebooks, but not a single one shows on the device (and yes, the "show downloaded books only" option is off), although they appear in the Kobo Aura folder on my laptop and on Calibre.

The only successful way to put everything into my Kobo at the moment is to copy/paste my Calibre library folder into the Kobo folder, but without the covers/metadata I modified with Calibre.
Is it a Kobo firmware/Calibre software update issue? Am I the only one having this problem?

This seems to contradict the later conversion errors. If you are copying the files from the calibre library directories to the device, they should have errors like the conversion is seeing. Or have you previously done epub-to-epub conversions and now have ORIGINAL_EPUB files as well? If so, a new conversion will process these. If they have somehow become corrupt, that would explain the conversion errors.

And just to confirm some things about how this all works...

When you send books from calibre to the device, the top format in the list of supported formats will be chosen and sent. This will be updated with the latest metadata and cover from the calibre library. Manually copying the book means that they get there unchanged.

After sending books to the Kobo device, when it is disconnected from the PC, it should display a black "processing" screen. This has a progress bar and percent complete as it processes all the new books into the devices library (reads metadata and ToC from the book and puts it into a database).

If the processing screen doesn't get displayed, it should mean there were no new books added to the device. This could mean the wrong formats were sent (wrong extension), or they were put into a place that the device doesn't look in (directory starting with a dot).

Sometimes a book can cause a problem with the processing. This happened a lot in the past but not as often now (on average books are better and the firmware has improved). If there is a problem, the processing usually stops and all books after the problem one are skipped. Whether earlier books are added, I'm not sure. In older firmware, they definitely weren't but the recent firmware has changed something in this and they might be.

My guess is that if the books in the calibre library are corrupted, then sending them to the device might work, but I would have expected an error from calibre when it attempted to update the metadata. If there wasn't an error, then when the books were processed by the device, it probably means the processing failed for the first book and all others were skipped. At this point, I would recommend removing all the books and finding one that is definitely OK (maybe grab one from the MR library). Then sideload and see if it appears in the devices library. If it does, then you need to find new copies of the corrupt books. If it doesn't, we'll have to think about what is happening.

[Lilyeuhh]

Thank you for your answers and explanations everyone. I tracked "empty" (=no file size) ebooks in Calibre and re-downloaded them, then put them on my Kobo. A few are still missing but they are not that important to me (=not on my want-to-read list, but still interested in them).