Kobo assistance

[EnricoQ]

Sadly I have to regret the fact the Kobo ereaders are my favorite ones, but the Kobo assistance is not at the same level of Kindle's...
I noticed that some ebooks I bought have their EAN-13 in their infos, in place of their ISBN-13.
No Kobo support operator has been able to tell me that, the only solution they can give me is to reset my Kobo, so I would loose and have to reload my DRM free ebook charged on my ereader... and they are not 2 or 3...
I would never give back my Kobo ereaders, I am also borrowing ebooks from public libraries and I will not change to another ereader type, on the contrary I will get the new Forma 32 Gb as it will be well tested...

[forster01]

Perhaps you can provide more info... did you buy those books from kobo store?
And i'm sorry but i don't quite understand what ean code has to do with anything?
And further more, you should backup your books from your ereader,on the PC before you proceed with reset(then again i don't quite understand why would you perform factory reset)

[meeera]

Like the previous poster, I am not understanding why this is a problem for you at all, and reading this about EANs hasn't shed any light.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intern..._and_upgrading

However, if you have DeDRMed books that would be a pain to reload should you actually need a factory reset for an issue, keep them organised with Calibre. Reloading them is then trivial.

[GeoffR]

An ePub book can have a number of different identifiers, some publishers use the ISBN as the identifier, more common seems to be to use a UUID, but they can use anything they want or even leave it out altogether, there is no consistency at all.

When an ePub is sideloaded the Kobo firmware grabs whatever identifier is in the book and displays that in the ISBN field of the book info page. It doesn't check whether it really is an ISBN or not, it just takes whatever the publisher has given as the identifier.

If the book has multiple identifiers then the firmware takes the first one (or is it the last one?) and others are ignored. So sometimes a book might have a valid ISBN identifier but it isn't used because another identifier is present.

There are only really two ways to ensure that the book's actual ISBN is displayed in the ISBN field of the book info page on the device:

1. Edit the book before sideloading to add the ISBN to the OPF file as an identifier and remove any other identifiers.

2. Or, after sideloading, change the device's database entry for the book to use the real ISBN. Easiest way to do this is with the "Update metadata in device library" function of the KoboUtilities plugin in Calibre (assuming you have entered the real ISBN into Calibre.)

(Edit: I should add: If you sync the book direct from Kobo then the ISBN displayed on the device should be the same as what is on the Kobo website because it is added during sync rather than read from the book itself, but if you sideload the same book then the identifier in the book is used, and it won't necessarily match the website. There is nothing to stop the publisher using one ISBN on the website and a different identifier in the book itself, and many do.)

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

An ePub book can have a number of different identifiers, some publishers use the ISBN as the identifier, more common seems to be to use a UUID, but they can use anything they want or even leave it out altogether, there is no consistency at all.

When an ePub is sideloaded the Kobo firmware grabs whatever identifier is in the book and displays that in the ISBN field of the book info page. It doesn't check whether it really is an ISBN or not, it just takes whatever the publisher has given as the identifier.

If the book has multiple identifiers then the firmware takes the first one (or is it the last one?) and others are ignored. So sometimes a book might have a valid ISBN identifier but it isn't used because another identifier is present.

It is the first one. I'll have to have a look at the calibre code to see if there is an easy way to make sure the ISBN is first if it exists. The hassle is that there is probably a device out there that takes the last identifier.

There are only really two ways to ensure that the book's actual ISBN is displayed in the ISBN field of the book info page on the device:

1. Edit the book before sideloading to add the ISBN to the OPF file as an identifier and remove any other identifiers.

2. Or, after sideloading, change the device's database entry for the book to use the real ISBN. Easiest way to do this is with the "Update metadata in device library" function of the KoboUtilities plugin in Calibre (assuming you have entered the real ISBN into Calibre.)

Even easier is to turn on the "Update metadata on Book Details page" option in the driver.

[EnricoQ]

Originally Posted by forster01

Perhaps you can provide more info... did you buy those books from kobo store?
And i'm sorry but i don't quite understand what ean code has to do with anything?
And further more, you should backup your books from your ereader,on the PC before you proceed with reset(then again i don't quite understand why would you perform factory reset)

Originally Posted by meeera

Like the previous poster, I am not understanding why this is a problem for you at all, and reading this about EANs hasn't shed any light.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intern..._and_upgrading

However, if you have DeDRMed books that would be a pain to reload should you actually need a factory reset for an issue, keep them organised with Calibre. Reloading them is then trivial.

Originally Posted by GeoffR

An ePub book can have a number of different identifiers, some publishers use the ISBN as the identifier, more common seems to be to use a UUID, but they can use anything they want or even leave it out altogether, there is no consistency at all.

When an ePub is sideloaded the Kobo firmware grabs whatever identifier is in the book and displays that in the ISBN field of the book info page. It doesn't check whether it really is an ISBN or not, it just takes whatever the publisher has given as the identifier.

If the book has multiple identifiers then the firmware takes the first one (or is it the last one?) and others are ignored. So sometimes a book might have a valid ISBN identifier but it isn't used because another identifier is present.

There are only really two ways to ensure that the book's actual ISBN is displayed in the ISBN field of the book info page on the device:

1. Edit the book before sideloading to add the ISBN to the OPF file as an identifier and remove any other identifiers.

2. Or, after sideloading, change the device's database entry for the book to use the real ISBN. Easiest way to do this is with the "Update metadata in device library" function of the KoboUtilities plugin in Calibre (assuming you have entered the real ISBN into Calibre.)

(Edit: I should add: If you sync the book direct from Kobo then the ISBN displayed on the device should be the same as what is on the Kobo website because it is added during sync rather than read from the book itself, but if you sideload the same book then the identifier in the book is used, and it won't necessarily match the website. There is nothing to stop the publisher using one ISBN on the website and a different identifier in the book itself, and many do.)

Sorry for my late reply.
First of all, thank you so much for your replies.
My main goal is to trace my book reading activity on Librarything, and as far as Librarything does not recognise EAN codes when I am adding my books and the EAN code does not begin by "978", and in my Kobo library each ebook is identified by ISBN: [...] so I asked...
meera, I will never deDRM an ebook, I will never need to deDRM...
But now I understand better the mechanism...
Please have a great 2019...