half of my book files missing?

Loki_London · 06-26-2015, 04:04 AM

Hi all,
A huge number of titles in my Calibre library are missing their book files and covers, leaving only the metadata.opf for each.
I have over 1000 titles, which I recently migrated to my new laptop. Looking at the backup I made, I see only titles beginning with letters A to D, and the library on my old laptop now shows the same thing, only it doesn't even have the metadata/entries in Calibre anymore.

Anyone have an idea as to what could have happened or how to recover my books? Or why the book files for A to D would copy, but only the metadata did for the rest?
Any help would be much appreciated!
Thank you.

theducks · 06-26-2015, 04:39 AM

I suspect your old laptop had uncorrected file system issues that existed before you copied (I assume you replaced it for a reason?)
or
Normally, I would say that some program had blocked the copy
Except that those files would still exist on the old and you say No

Lost is probably LOST

You could run a file system check on the old drive (assumes that the drive was not failing). If the laptop was sick, put the old drive in a USB caddy and connect to your new machine

Loki_London · 06-26-2015, 05:46 AM

Thank you for your reply, theducks!

The 'old' laptop is perfectly healthy, as far as I can tell. In preparation for selling it, I've run SFC and a number of other hardware tests, and all was well. (I upgraded because I needed a more powerful system for 3D modeling.)
Do you know if Calibre's metadata.db automatically generates metadata.opf files for each book it contains if it can't find them? I'm curious now if the metadata.opf files actually transferred from the old laptop, or if Calibre just created them when it read the db.

I have an old external drive I'm going to check later to hopefully get at least part of my library back. I haven't backed-up to it in a while now, since I've been using a larger one, so it won't have copies of everything unfortunately.
*sigh* Never again will I feel unjustified in keeping redundant back-ups!

:

Any input is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

itimpi · 06-26-2015, 09:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loki_London

Do you know if Calibre's metadata.db automatically generates metadata.opf files for each book it contains if it can't find them? I'm curious now if the metadata.opf files actually transferred from the old laptop, or if Calibre just created them when it read the db.

I believe it does.

I think it runs this in a background job and throttles the creation rate so that they only appear relatively slowly.

Not quite sure what might cause the actual ebook files to go missing. I would expect this to be due to some factor external to Calibre. One possible culprit is if you are syncing to cloud storage and that has gone wrong.

theducks · 06-26-2015, 10:58 AM

metadata.opf is indeed a calibre generated replica of the books metadata (as seen).
And yes, it runs slowly in background (to avoid performance hits) on every change. You can check how many are yet to be posed/updated

right-click the Library Icon: Library Maintenance: Library Metadata Backup Status

SFC checks the Windows install,
Disk maintenance tools (chkdisk) will check the file system

You might recover some books from your device

06-26-2015, 04:04 AM	#1
Loki_London Professional Eccentric Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2014 Device: Samsung Galaxy Tab	half of my book files missing? Hi all, A huge number of titles in my Calibre library are missing their book files and covers, leaving only the metadata.opf for each. I have over 1000 titles, which I recently migrated to my new laptop. Looking at the backup I made, I see only titles beginning with letters A to D, and the library on my old laptop now shows the same thing, only it doesn't even have the metadata/entries in Calibre anymore. Anyone have an idea as to what could have happened or how to recover my books? Or why the book files for A to D would copy, but only the metadata did for the rest? Any help would be much appreciated! Thank you.

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06-26-2015, 04:39 AM	#2
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 31,067 Karma: 60358908 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	I suspect your old laptop had uncorrected file system issues that existed before you copied (I assume you replaced it for a reason?) or Normally, I would say that some program had blocked the copy Except that those files would still exist on the old and you say No Lost is probably LOST You could run a file system check on the old drive (assumes that the drive was not failing). If the laptop was sick, put the old drive in a USB caddy and connect to your new machine

06-26-2015, 05:46 AM	#3
Loki_London Professional Eccentric Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Sep 2014 Device: Samsung Galaxy Tab	Thank you for your reply, theducks! The 'old' laptop is perfectly healthy, as far as I can tell. In preparation for selling it, I've run SFC and a number of other hardware tests, and all was well. (I upgraded because I needed a more powerful system for 3D modeling.) Do you know if Calibre's metadata.db automatically generates metadata.opf files for each book it contains if it can't find them? I'm curious now if the metadata.opf files actually transferred from the old laptop, or if Calibre just created them when it read the db. I have an old external drive I'm going to check later to hopefully get at least part of my library back. I haven't backed-up to it in a while now, since I've been using a larger one, so it won't have copies of everything unfortunately. sigh Never again will I feel unjustified in keeping redundant back-ups! : Any input is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

06-26-2015, 10:58 AM	#5
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 31,067 Karma: 60358908 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	metadata.opf is indeed a calibre generated replica of the books metadata (as seen). And yes, it runs slowly in background (to avoid performance hits) on every change. You can check how many are yet to be posed/updated right-click the Library Icon: Library Maintenance: Library Metadata Backup Status SFC checks the Windows install, Disk maintenance tools (chkdisk) will check the file system You might recover some books from your device

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