Kindle Fire, sideloaded books and synching

[chilady1]

Originally Posted by sadievan

In DiskAid make sure you go to Preferences>Advanced and tick off Show Root path for apps

Carol

@Carol - thanks for pointing that out. I did in fact forget to mention that as part of the instructions.

@techiegirl - you are most welcome. There were a lot of folks on this board that helped me figure this out so wanted to share my knowledge. This is a great feature as I imagine you already know given I use all of my devices with my Kindle being the primary device for reading. Glad it worked out for you.

[pagansoul]

I have hundreds of ebooks from MANYBOOKS in my Calibre file. When I update the Meta-files and sometimes change the covers I make sure I have copies in both EPUB and MOBI. I have had no trouble loading on to the devices BOOKs at all. I have been loading comics CBR/CBZ directly off my Mac and they appear in my app COMICAT after I told it to look for them. I have a few books in DOCS that I have to figure why they ended up there as opposed to BOOKS but I'm not too worried about that.

Has anyone gotten a home movie to play in VIDEO? I have FREEdi YOUTUBE app that plays the little movies I have on YOUTUBE but would like to load shorts to the device itself.

Originally Posted by pagansoul

I have hundreds of ebooks from MANYBOOKS in my Calibre file. When I update the Meta-files and sometimes change the covers I make sure I have copies in both EPUB and MOBI. I have had no trouble loading on to the devices BOOKs at all. I have been loading comics CBR/CBZ directly off my Mac and they appear in my app COMICAT after I told it to look for them. I have a few books in DOCS that I have to figure why they ended up there as opposed to BOOKS but I'm not too worried about that.

Has anyone gotten a home movie to play in VIDEO? I have FREEdi YOUTUBE app that plays the little movies I have on YOUTUBE but would like to load shorts to the device itself.

I use Moboplayer 1.2.176 to play time lapse videos I created with Quicktime Pro. It is able to decode most formats so you don't have to convert. You need to sideload the apk though as it isn't available through Amazon.

[nickinev]

Originally Posted by SCION

2-way syncing of sideloaded books between the Touch and Fire works consistently!!! Wow, it's practically instantaneous. No lag time for server updates at all. Barnes and Noble can keep their NOOKcolor/Tablet/STR along with the SD card slot. I have no regrets.

Some of my sideloaded books just refuse to sync and some sync fine. It must have something to with the file.

[SCION]

Originally Posted by nickinev

Some of my sideloaded books just refuse to sync and some sync fine. It must have something to with the file.

I sampled 5 books. One just won't sync. Well, it wants to sync according to old info on the server. Keeps saying the furthest read location is from yesterday afternoon or I'm currently at the furthest read spot. This is the notice I get on the Fire and Touch when testing. I'll set one book on the Touch to the beginning and the other book on the Fire way pass the furthest read location on the server. Then I'll switch the two, doing the same test. And I still get furthest read location from yesterday afternoon or I'm currently at the furthest read spot. I gave up on this book. Not really up to troubleshooting this.

[nickinev]

Originally Posted by SCION

I sampled 5 books. One just won't sync. Well, it wants to sync according to old info on the server. Keeps saying the furthest read location is from yesterday afternoon or I'm currently at the furthest read spot. This is the notice I get on the Fire and Touch when testing. I'll set one book on the Touch to the beginning and the other book on the Fire way pass the furthest read location on the server. Then I'll switch the two, doing the same test. And I still get furthest read location from yesterday afternoon or I'm currently at the furthest read spot. I gave up on this book. Not really up to troubleshooting this.

Yep, that's what happening to me. I know, I've done everything - I've deleted the file and reconverted it. I have done the mobi2mobi thing. It just doesn't like it! I'm really at a loss as to what else I could do - I'll just have to remember my place for the time being. Won't kill me!

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by SCION

I sampled 5 books. One just won't sync. Well, it wants to sync according to old info on the server. Keeps saying the furthest read location is from yesterday afternoon or I'm currently at the furthest read spot. This is the notice I get on the Fire and Touch when testing. I'll set one book on the Touch to the beginning and the other book on the Fire way pass the furthest read location on the server. Then I'll switch the two, doing the same test. And I still get furthest read location from yesterday afternoon or I'm currently at the furthest read spot. I gave up on this book. Not really up to troubleshooting this.

I've had trouble syncing a few amazon books on the Fire to my K4.

I have a feeling its Amazon servers. They have been acting a little off since the Fire's release. I bought a mp3 album and it wouldn't show up but I kept synching, restarted and nothing.

I was about to give it up so I gave it one more try and this time it did show up.

Silk wont even work half the time unless I remove it from going through Amazon's servers. My guess is something needs fixing.

[nickinev]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I've had trouble syncing a few amazon books on the Fire to my K4.

I have a feeling its Amazon servers. They have been acting a little off since the Fire's release. I bought a mp3 album and it wouldn't show up but I kept synching, restarted and nothing.

I was about to give it up so I gave it one more try and this time it did show up.

Silk wont even work half the time unless I remove it from going through Amazon's servers. My guess is something needs fixing.

I think you're right Blossom. One book I was having trouble with now syncs fine.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by nickinev

I think you're right Blossom. One book I was having trouble with now syncs fine.

I don't think Amazon's servers are prepared for the huge growth of Kindle users that happened in the last month and it will be interesting to see after Christmas what happens.

[nynaevelan]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I don't think Amazon's servers are prepared for the huge growth of Kindle users that happened in the last month and it will be interesting to see after Christmas what happens.

I agree, I wonder how long it will take them to fix it.

[ereaderCanada]

I'm trying to sync my bookmarks, highlights and notes for books that I have side loaded. I use Kindle on PC's, iPhone and now most recently on the Kindle Fire. I discovered that e-mailing the .mobi to my kindle address will add it to the Fire but NOT to my PC's or iPhone so that won't work (no idea why amazon doesn't allow that - very frustrating to say the least!)

I then tried using dropbox and setting my kindle book folder to my dropbox folder and could load my e-books onto my PC kindle application and it sync's perfectly. After doing a bit of research I found that the Kindle app stores this meta information in the *.mbp file. I then loaded it via my iPhone app and it doesn't seem to use the .mbp file so my notes are not synced. I've used quickoffice on the Fire to access dropbox but it doesn't recognize the .mobi book which stinks so not yet sure if this approach will work with the Fire.

So in a nutshell I haven't yet figured out a good way to automatically sync my notes across PC, iPhone and Fire. I can't use the ASIN method because these are personal docs/books that don't exist on amazon. Any suggestions on how I can accomplish this?

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by ereaderCanada

I'm trying to sync my bookmarks, highlights and notes for books that I have side loaded. I use Kindle on PC's, iPhone and now most recently on the Kindle Fire. I discovered that e-mailing the .mobi to my kindle address will add it to the Fire but NOT to my PC's or iPhone so that won't work (no idea why amazon doesn't allow that - very frustrating to say the least!)

I then tried using dropbox and setting my kindle book folder to my dropbox folder and could load my e-books onto my PC kindle application and it sync's perfectly. After doing a bit of research I found that the Kindle app stores this meta information in the *.mbp file. I then loaded it via my iPhone app and it doesn't seem to use the .mbp file so my notes are not synced. I've used quickoffice on the Fire to access dropbox but it doesn't recognize the .mobi book which stinks so not yet sure if this approach will work with the Fire.

So in a nutshell I haven't yet figured out a good way to automatically sync my notes across PC, iPhone and Fire. I can't use the ASIN method because these are personal docs/books that don't exist on amazon. Any suggestions on how I can accomplish this?

You could try borrowing a AISN from a book you don't have. Put it in the metadata of the document.

[ereaderCanada]

I've tried the following
1. Add .mobi book into Calibre version 0.8.21
2. Download metadata and I see it filled in lots of good information including several entries in the Ids: field. I see an isbn: and a google: with numbers. I assume that one of these will be used as the ASIN although I can't seem to find information on the web to confirm - I get contradicting results so not sure who to believe.
3. Convert mobi to mobi to ensure the new meta information is written out in the new mobi file(s)
4. Add the new mobi files to dropbox which is also my kindle PC home folder
5. Open kindle on my PC and it sees the converted book
6. Open dropbox on my iPhone and I see the book and tell the dropbox application to open this in the kindle app
7. Opens nicely but no bookmark, highlight sharing or page syncing between the iphone and the PC on this book.

Did I miss something? I've spent time looking for a definitive guide on how to do this on google but I've gathered hints here and there to put together the above procedure but doesn't seem to work so I'm missing something.....

[frankz]

The bookmarks and highlighting are not going to sync for books not bought on Amazon.

As for the page synching, I really don't understand why people don't use the mobi2mobi GUI method I linked to earlier in the thread - which works rock solid every time - instead of trying to do it through Calibre - which seems to be where the problems are being created / seen.

The biggest problem with doing it through Calibre is that, to my knowledge, you don't have access to the raw EXTH data to see that the values are actually properly set. So you're sitting there blind having to experiment opening the book here and there and paging around on different devices to make sure it was done correctly.

Mobi2Mobi GUI you do it, you see the results in the raw data, and you're done.

Calibre is a great program and very powerful, but for this specific task, going into a separate program and making two little tweaks turns out to be easier in the long run.

[SCION]

Originally Posted by frankz

The bookmarks and highlighting are not going to sync for books not bought on Amazon.

As for the page synching, I really don't understand why people don't use the mobi2mobi GUI method I linked to earlier in the thread - which works rock solid every time - instead of trying to do it through Calibre - which seems to be where the problems are being created / seen.

The biggest problem with doing it through Calibre is that, to my knowledge, you don't have access to the raw EXTH data to see that the values are actually properly set. So you're sitting there blind having to experiment opening the book here and there and paging around on different devices to make sure it was done correctly.

Mobi2Mobi GUI you do it, you see the results in the raw data, and you're done.

Calibre is a great program and very powerful, but for this specific task, going into a separate program and making two little tweaks turns out to be easier in the long run.

So, you're saying use the books that are in the Calibre library folder (with the DRM removed). Run the scripts. Are the original files overwritten or will their be two files now? Do the files need to be re-added to the Calibre libary? Does the original metadata remain in tact after running the scripts? There's a lot of unknowns for me to proceed.