Problem with transferring books to Kindle via Calibre

[Bookprincess]

Hi there,
So, I'm kinda new to this whole...thing (never posted on a forum before, I hope I'm doing it ok). Calibre has really helped me a lot with transferring my library to my brand-new-first-ever Kindle, yay! But. No matter what I try (uploading them all to the device at once, or in smaller groups), at some point it starts re-uploading books that are already on the device every time I connect the device to my computer (like, about 20 files, the same ones every time, they appear anew on my Kindle like I just transferred them as well for the first time)...does anyone know how to fix/prevent this? Pleaseeeee it's driving me crazy and I don't know how to fix it, please tell me there's a way how

[theducks]

What Calibre Plugins do you have installed?
And
What version of Calibre on what O/S?

[Bookprincess]

Hi! Thank you for replying!
Um..what are Calibre Plugins? I'm pretty sure I don't use them..I think? Just..the regular Calibre software I downloaded
And Calibre 4.10.1 on Windows 10.

[kovidgoyal]

You are saying that if you ask calibre to transfer one book it actually transfers 21??

[Bookprincess]

Hello!!
No, I'm saying that I transfer some books, and when I disconnect another 20 or 30 or now even 40 that should already be on my device, appear anew (like, they were transferred again, although they were already on the device from previous transfers.)

Also, (less important but may be relevant), they take a long time to appear- it says to charge the device after transferring books, right? It needs to be charged for the books to appear on my Kindle, so I do, and it adds the new ones (and usually, the re-transferred ones) a few seconds later, but sometimes those re-transferred ones don't appear for a longer time, or even until I plug it out and back in a few times (and they don't exist on the device until I do)

...I hope this makes sense? I'm very confused and frustrated by it ;(

[kovidgoyal]

This is a kindle indexer issue, not much calibre can do about it. All calibre does is copy the file to the kindle, the kindle indexer then runs and generates the list of books from the files on the device. I'm guessing one of the books on your kindle is causing he indexer to crash/otherwise misbehave. Sadly there is no way to get diagnostics from the indexer so I cant tell you how to find out which book.

[Bookprincess]

Thank you so much for your reply and the explanation! It's really great getting help from you. (And Calibre is awesome, thank you for it)
What you said make sense, but I wish there was some way to find out which book is the problem...:\ Is it safe to assume the problematic book is one of those who keep re-transferring, though? (pleasepleaseplease) Or could it be any of the books whatsoever?

Also, do you think Amazon might be able to get diagnostics from the indexer? Or shouldn't I even try ask them..?

[Bookprincess]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

This is a kindle indexer issue, not much calibre can do about it. All calibre does is copy the file to the kindle, the kindle indexer then runs and generates the list of books from the files on the device. I'm guessing one of the books on your kindle is causing he indexer to crash/otherwise misbehave. Sadly there is no way to get diagnostics from the indexer so I cant tell you how to find out which book.

Oh my gosh I think I found the problematic file/files!
Thank you so so much for helping me understand what the problem even was!
You've helped me a ton

[kovidgoyal]

You're welcome