Refresh library on Kindle (Voyage)

[locksoft]

I use Calibre on my Paperwhite since years and usually it works very well.
From time to time it sometimes doesn't upload the book cover, or it uploads it smaller than usual. Generally it's enough to delete and resend the book to have it correctly done.

Today I purchased a Kindle Voyage and, without thinking, I uploaded all my books to it. I noticed that some covers didn't make to it and some are smaller.

To be honest I forgot to run the configuration wizard to select voyage (but I guess it's for books converting, rather than for upload, right?).

Is there a way to "refresh" the book library on the Kindle? I prefer don't delete or manually overwrite books because I don't know if they may loose their properties (read/not read, reading position, folders assigned or so) and I've too many books to do it one by one.

Any idea? Thanks.

[locksoft]

Here's a quick recap: adding and removing the same books with Calibre, in the hope to solve the problem, suddenly my Voyage stopped to "refresh" its internal library.
That means that it kept showing books I deleted (even manually) and didn't show new ones.
Of course, when I tried to open a non existent book, it says the book was no more available, still the "delete" command didn't do anything (nor reporting errors).

I contacted Amazon assistance that made me restore the device to factory settings and discuraged me from using Calibre because "sometimes it messes things up", for that reason they don't support it. They told me the best way is manually copy the ebooks on the device.

Fine, I can do that.

Problem is that covers don't show, Amazon guy told me that it happens when there's something wrong in the conversion. Unfortunately they don't have an official app to convert ebooks.

So my new question is: is there any converter that can produce mobi/azw3 good formatted enough for Kindles to recognize the cover?

Thanks.

[kovidgoyal]

Amazon support are talking nonsense.

Covers dont show up on Kindles because of official amazon policy to discourage side-loading of books. See https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq...droid-ipad-etc

And the Kindle indexer getting stuck is because amazon designed it so badly that it crashes when it comes across some books, and there is no way to get any diagnostics from it: https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq...id-not-show-up

[locksoft]

Thanks for your answer, Kovid.

Yes, after more than one hour with the assistance I realized that guy had no clues about what he was talking about. He made me hard reset the device and then, when the problem occurred again, was talking about Calibre "writing hidden files" in some "hidden Kindle place" that an hard reset couldn't delete, or saying that a bad formatted mobi could hang the device. Even "wrong metadata", that are text strings, could harm the device.

Then they said the only safe option was (of course) purchase books on Amazon, and that was the only option they support.

Well, about smaller covers I discovered it was my fault. Paperwhite 2 has a lower PPI and I had some about 300px. They covered all the space on PW but not on Voyage that has a more dense one. I was thinking the general page resolution didn't change but it's evident that Voyager manages them in a different way. Anyway, changing cover with ones with at least 500 vertical pixels solved the problem.

But I'd like to dig a bit more deeply into the more serious issue if you don't mind. It never occurred in years of Calibre use with Paperwhite but two times on two on Voyage.
Here's my guess:

Usually I copy a book with Calibre and then I check if everything is ok. If some metadata is wrong, or if the cover is too small I correct them and send to device again.
Yesterday I was doing these operations very quickly.

I realized, and never noticed it before, that when I connect the Kindle on Mac (I still use El Capitan, btw), after a while Calibre correctly recognizes it but, when I unmount it and keep it still connected to Mac, Calibre keeps thinking it's still connected. Of course it's right but, since the Kindle is no more in USB mode, of course it can't access it anymore.

I was thinking it was a strange behavior of Voyage but I've seen that Paperwhite does the same too. But usually I unmount and immediately disconnect so I never realized that.

But that could be the origin of the problem. Because in my first two attempts I copied the files, then unmount the device and checked if everything was ok *without* disconnecting the Kindle. Then immediately disconnect and reconnect the cable within half of a second. That way, I guess, Calibre didn't have the time to realize that and then, when I tried to copy the file back to kindle, it kept doing like usual (but this time the kindle was in USB mode, so the connection worked).

As result of this method I often found two copies of the same book on the voyage, but one of them (sometimes both, still didn't understand) could not be opened. Trying to delete them on the Kindle gave no errors but either nothing was deleted. Same manually deleting the files (if present) in the document folder of kindle. From that point on no new mobi file added (with Calibre or manually) was detected by Kindle and no existent file deleted (from Calibre, from Kindle or manually) disappeared. Kindle software seemed unable to refresh its list. But adding a PDF file worked, it appeared correctly on the device and it was possible to open it.

Do you think this could be a bug in Calibre and/or a strange issue gave by the combination with El Capitan and the last versions of Calibre?

Just to be sure I totally uninstalled Calibre and made a fresh install. And I was very careful to also disconnect the cable, wait for Calibre to realize the connection was over, and connect again before trying to send more ebooks to the device. And everything was ok.

But now I'm very scared because, should this issue happen again, the only solution is an hard reset.

Do you have any idea about this? Thanks.

[kovidgoyal]

Use the eject button in calibre (right click the device icon to aceess it) instead of unmounting it from the OS and you will never have that issue. In general, you should never only unmount a device, always eject it as well. calibre will detect ejects, but not unmounts.

[locksoft]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Use the eject button in calibre (right click the device icon to aceess it) instead of unmounting it from the OS and you will never have that issue. In general, you should never only unmount a device, always eject it as well. calibre will detect ejects, but not unmounts.

Clear, many thanks.