Sorting with calibre

[franknight]

I hope this is being posted at the correct place. I am a novice with this website but not with calibre. I have a large library and since downloading another version of calibre a month or two ago it seems not to sort correctly. (I only download a new version every 3 months) I notice it mostly with Series but it also happens with Authors. I carefully make sure the spelling is identical using the tools in the left margin but still it often separates one or two of ten series (with the same author).
Is this a known problem? Does anyone else experience it?
frank

[theducks]

Calibre uses your old settings unless you take special steps to remove them.
So Updates usually just happen with no pain

Also, The Library (metadata.db) contains Library specific settings and those do NOT change with updates.

So, if you are havin 'sort' issues. They have been there all along and something you are now doing has exposed them.

QUALITY CHECK PLUGIN This can check various items within your metadata. I would start with having it check sorts, author initials (Fix has the repair that matches your setting for those)

[Adoby]

Yes, this has happened to me. More than once.

After closely examining the fields sorted on, it was resolved.

For instance there are two author fields. One that is used to display and one that is use for sorting. You need to examine and confirm that both are correct.

There may be characters embedded in fields that look the same but have different numeric values, and so sort differently.

There may be spaces or punctuation that differ in ways that are hard to notice.

At no time have I experienced a bug in calibre that cause the sorting to be off. It has always been a correct sort, but perhaps not always the immediate expected sort. What you think you see is not always what is there.

One good way to fix this is to copy/paste fields and/or edit fields for several books at once, as a group.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Adoby

Yes, this has happened to me. More than once.

After closely examining the fields sorted on, it was resolved.

For instance there are two author fields. One that is used to display and one that is use for sorting. You need to examine and confirm that both are correct.

There may be characters embedded in fields that look the same but have different numeric values, and so sort differently.

There may be spaces or punctuation that differ in ways that are hard to notice.

At no time have I experienced a bug in calibre that cause the sorting to be off. It has always been a correct sort, but perhaps not always the immediate expected sort. What you think you see is not always what is there.

↑ ↑ ↑ ✔

Originally Posted by Adoby

One good way to fix this is to copy/paste fields and/or edit fields for several books at once, as a group.

Not sure if it's the same: I've found the Edit metadata->Copy metadata and Edit metadata->Paste metadata options invaluable for maintaining consistent metadata. They work at the book list level, I shortcutted them to Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V; there's a Tweak to limit which columns get Pasted.

BR

[franknight]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I am aware of minor punctuation totally changing the sort. Sometimes hard to see. I analyze carefully and can't find it. However I think I may be forgetting the 'author sort' thing sometimes. Thanks. It only happens seldom but I will check carefully next time. I often sort title, than series, then author which puts the books in an order I can understand what is missing. And so find what I want to buy next.
frank