Get List Of Books On Device - V.Slow

[Katash]

Hello,

I have a new Kindle Fire HD (16Gb) and have used Calibre (0.9.5) to send 2700ish .mobi books to the device. Problem is whenever I plug in the device Calibre will take ages (about 10-20 mins) getting a list of books on the device.

I have read quite a few old posts where people have had this problem but I understand Calibre now caches metadata on the device and should now not be an issue, nevertheless I have still tried what was recommended (disable metadata read) and it has not helped.

The problem seems to be that calibre is creating the file 'metadata.calibre' in the root directory of the device which seems correct and when I plug the Kindle in it goes into 'Get list of books on device' mode - BUT it searches through seemingly every android file before it stumbles upon metadata.calibre, once this file gets found the process ends.

If I close calibre then reopen it without unplugging the device it will drastically cut the discovery time down to about 8 seconds, but if I physically unplug the device then reconnect, Calibre will feel the need to spend 10-20 mins finding all my OS files for me before it stumbles upon metadata.calibre.

Is there any fix for this? To me it seems that Calibre needs to specifically look for metadata.calibre before anything else.

Thanks in advance.

[kovidgoyal]

No there is no fix for this. calibre has to list every file on the device, otherwise how will it know when you've added files outside calibre, or deleted them, or moved them? And listing files on MTP is very slow for some reason.

[Katash]

I see - thanks for the reply.

Would it be possible to include an option to 'only scan device on command' .... So when a device is plugged in it assumes no changes have been made and alows control quicker .... If you wish to rescan device for changes you hit the scan button?

[kovidgoyal]

Anything is possible, but that isn't going to happen. I suggest putting fewer books on your device or using a wireless connection method instead, which doesn't suffer from the performance limitations of MTP.

[Katash]

Ok thanks

[Katash]

For anyone else with this same problem - There is no wireless option for connecting a Kindle Fire HD to Calibre AFAIK, the app 'Calibre Companion' is not compatible with this device (and according to the makers never likely to be either)

If anyone knows any other suitable way of addressing this problem (without having to remove most of my books) please share here.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Katash

For anyone else with this same problem - There is no wireless option for connecting a Kindle Fire HD to Calibre AFAIK, the app 'Calibre Companion' is not compatible with this device (and according to the makers never likely to be either)

If anyone knows any other suitable way of addressing this problem (without having to remove most of my books) please share here.

Just tossing an Idea. Run a FTP server on:
the Calibre host (limit permissions to the shared, connect to folder) (usually comes with Pro/ Business version of the OS)

Is there a FTP server for the Fire HD? Push the file from the host with a client program like Filezilla (Windows and Linux)

[Tvangeste]

Would it be possible to configure Calibre's very slow MTP scanning and only look for certain folders? I have thousands of files on my phone, including lots of caches, etc. The scan takes many, many minutes and basically makes the whole process useless.

[HarryT]

Windows Explorer seems to be quick enough with MTP devices. Is that because it only scans a folder when you open it? Would it not be feasible to add to Calibre's MTP driver an option to only scan a designated folder? Just a suggestion - perhaps there are reasons this couldn't be done?

[Tvangeste]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Would it not be feasible to add to Calibre's MTP driver an option to only scan a designated folder?

Yep, that would be ideal. In Android plugin's options there is even a possibility to specify the folders already, it's just they are ignored and Calibre scans entire phone and card filesystems, which in my case means 32Gb phone + 64GB card.

So the whole scan takes more then half an hour. I actually never reached the end of the scan, I just kill Calibre (since there is no other way to cancel the scan)

[IskandarHack]

Originally Posted by Tvangeste

Yep, that would be ideal. In Android plugin's options there is even a possibility to specify the folders already, it's just they are ignored and Calibre scans entire phone and card filesystems, which in my case means 32Gb phone + 64GB card.

So the whole scan takes more then half an hour. I actually never reached the end of the scan, I just kill Calibre (since there is no other way to cancel the scan)

It's take well over two hours and only 62% on my Tab SII with 32G on device and 128G memory card. With the larger devices, another method needs to be worked out or else I need to find a different software package.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by IskandarHack

It's take well over two hours and only 62% on my Tab SII with 32G on device and 128G memory card. With the larger devices, another method needs to be worked out or else I need to find a different software package.

Have you correctly specified the folder to be scanned in the configuration?

[theducks]

Note: This task must complete at least once for the folder setting to stick