Problem with "Upload seperate cover thumbnails" on prs-950

[ThR]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

A quick test(solution) might be to just delete those books and resend them.

That's what I thought, too. But I understood that the cover-send-feature is for all books on the device. And than, it would be a bug. But as work-around - ok.

[jackie_w]

*** This is a copy of a post from a recent thread. I am re-posting here as it has a better chance of being found by more people doing a search ***

The Sony x50 devices, in their wisdom, always extract the thumbnail from the book when a book is new. Developer chaley tried many things to stop this happening. I helped with the testing. No magic method has been found and maybe never will be.

However, the 2 checkboxes in the Sony Device Interface plugin (reached via Preferences - Plugins - Device Interface - Sony - Customize) can improve things.

1. This is what will happen if you check both boxes Upload separate cover thumbnails... and Refresh separate covers...
   
   
   When you Send to Device some new books Calibre will also send thumbnails based on the Calibre covers. When you disconnect the Sony, it will throw away the Calibre thumbnails and extract its own from each book. When you simply reconnect the Sony to Calibre a second time, Calibre will send Calibre thumbnails again. This time they will 'stick'. This works for all Sony formats (epub, pdf, rtf, txt) whether they are DRM'd or not.
   
   This is the 'easiest' way to keep your Sony thumbnails in sync with Calibre covers. However, if you have a large number of books on the Sony, refreshing the thumbnails every time you connect the Sony may be rather slow.
   
   
2. This is what will happen if you check just one box Upload separate cover thumbnails...
   
   
   When you Send to Device some new books Calibre will also send thumbnails based on the Calibre covers. When you disconnect the Sony, it will throw away the Calibre thumbnails and extract its own from each book. If you Send to Device a second time (only the books with a "wrong" thumbnail necessary) Calibre will send Calibre thumbnails again. This time they will 'stick'. This also works for all Sony formats whether they are DRM'd or not.
   
   This is not as convenient but there will be no performance penalty each time you connect the Sony to Calibre.

My advice would be to try checking both boxes and see whether the performance is acceptable. If it isn't uncheck Refresh separate covers...


On the other hand, if you only ever send non-DRM epubs to your Sony and these epubs have been created by Calibre with the correct cover, the thumbnail the Sony automatically extracts after the initial Send to Device will be correct first time and you can leave both boxes unchecked.

[ThR]

@jackie-w

Thank you. But there's one question left: "refresh seperate covers" means, that calibre will send the cover of a book only a second time and not on every reconnect, right?

With this question answered with "yes", I have to resend the books, which have a "wrong" cover. No problem, as I misunderstood this feature. ;-)

[jackie_w]

There have been some developments in the 'Sony thumbnail saga' today. The next release of Calibre should bring big improvements.

The intent is, and always has been, that:

• If you check both Upload separate cover... AND Refresh separate covers... Calibre will resend cover thumbnails EVERY single time you connect the reader to Calibre, i.e. your Sony thumbnails should always be in line with calibre, even if you change a Calibre cover after the initial Send-to-Device. No need to resend the book to the Sony. I believe you also need to have Metadata management set to Automatic in Preferences - Send to Device for this to work.
  
• If you only check Upload separate cover... Calibre will send cover thumbnails only when you Send-to-device. So if you change a cover in Calibre after the initial send to Sony, you would need to Send-to-device again for the Sony thumbnail to be updated.
  
• If you check neither Upload nor Refresh then Calibre will not send any thumbnails to the Sony. The Sony will extract its thumbnail from what it finds actually inside the book.

The intent has not changed.

However, last night I found a few problems with thumbnails when sending to SD card rather than internal memory. Developer chaley has fixed these problems today. We also may finally have the solution to the "non-sticking-thumbnails-after-first-send" mystery. All of this, hopefully in time for the next Calibre release.

My advice would be to not spend much time trying to sort out your Sony thumbnails until we have the next release. Life should become much simpler and more predictable.

[ThR]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

My advice would be to not spend much time trying to sort out your Sony thumbnails until we have the next release. Life should become much simpler and more predictable.

for the update. And waiting for the next release is no problem even when this feature is veeeery nice. And resending books with a wrong cover would not have been a problem. But of there will be a solution -

ADD: you said, there is another thread - should we close this, to bundle the information?

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by ThR

ADD: you said, there is another thread - should we close this, to bundle the information?

Your thread has a meaningful title so there's no harm leaving it open.

[ThR]

@jackie_w

chaley and you - you are brilliant !!! It works perfect now!