Calibre deletes "duplicates" of different books because of same title

[MashaT]

I have books in a series folder. The books have the same main name and additional separate title for each volume. I put main name into title and I put volume title along with volume # to subtitle field

Example: title "86- Eighty Six", subtitle "Vol 7 Death, be Not Proud" (series index #7)

However, every volume before vol 7 was deleted and I realized it was due to same title and same file format (epub). For some reason difference in subtitle and series index was not enough to prevent those books being deleted as duplicates.

Is there any way to deal with this other than adding volume number directly into title or disabling duplicate function entirely? Perhaps configure duplicate function somehow to take into account series index and/or subtitle not just title and file format?

[kovidgoyal]

calibre does not delete duplicates. when you add a book to calibre you are given the option of either adding duplicates or ignoring them. that is all.

[MashaT]

Sorry, let me explain what is happening in more detail.

I got those books into Calibre fine with no duplicates alert. Its when I started sending them to device the trouble arose. I am sending them to Kobo Glo HD.

As Calibre processed the upload, the green check mark on left (that indicates the book was successfully sent to device and is both on device and in library) appeared. However, as other volumes below continued to be sent, the check mark in books above vanished. In the end, when Kobo processed the change, in ereader there was only 1 volume of the series, the last one sent. I checked both series folder and search whole book for this title. (I connected to Calibre two more times just to get full metadata upload).

I tried reuploading those volumes back again, and started the upload from later volume to first. The same thing happened, including that the volume already uploaded last time vanished. Basically, the last volume uploaded gets the green mark and stays while previous volumes get unchecked and not there.

I never encountered this issue before and don't know what is happening. The books are different (different volumes of the series, not same book with different editions). Only if I add some change to title (because different subtitle and series index # don't count for this for some reason), the books get uploaded and stay.

[kovidgoyal]

Change the template calibre uses to send to device to include the id field and the filenames on the device will always be unique even if the title/author of the books is the same.

[MashaT]

Changing template did the trick. I never noticed this situation before. Is it because previously I added books in a series one at time as they came out (different Calibre versions) and this time I added a bunch at the same time?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MashaT

Changing template did the trick. I never noticed this situation before. Is it because previously I added books in a series one at time as they came out (different Calibre versions) and this time I added a bunch at the same time?

It is because the save template you were using was generating the same file name for multiple books. The default save template is "{author_sort}/{title} - {authors}" which will only have problems if you have duplicate books in the library. A surprisingly common (to me anyway) mistake is to change the template to something that uses the series name but not the title or series index. So using "{author_sort}/{series} - {authors}" would generate the same file name for each book in the series. And the result would be that you would have only one book from each series on the device. As Kovid has suggested, using the id field as part of the save template should solve any issues.


And note, your original post did not give any clue that you were talking about sending books to the device. It sounded like you were adding books to calibre, which is what prompted Kovid's original response.

[MashaT]

Actually before Kovid prompted me, I never changed the template and had original template in place {author_sort}/title}- {author}

Its just I recently got new books from a series that likes to name its books the same with only difference being a volume number (in the title) and I started to shorten the titles since they didn't fit in. I thought using different subtitles and different series index would show calibre that the book is different, I didn't realize that template plays a part in this.