Trouble with books staying connected and metadata

[chaley]

Originally Posted by tamhas

As I understand it, Calibre Companion still would require the setup of the calibre server, which means that the Windows box would have to be running whenever you wanted to access the information. This seems to me to be unworkable. Even when we are here, you box would often have gone to sleep at the point where you wanted to access the catalog. The Linux box is up all the time, but then we have the problem of how to maintain the catalog. It really seems like a cloud implementation is preferred, even if it has some issues to manage.

No, having a calibre server is not required. You would transfer your library to the device. As I said earlier, many people have thousands of books managed by CC on their reader device.

My guess is that your requirement that the client have write access to the database might exclude CC. But perhaps I am mis-reading what you say.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by tamhas

Periodically, I will take a set of books which have automatically downloaded to my Kindle and add them to Calibre. Sometimes, when I go back the next time, these, or some of these, books are not shown in the device viewer as being in the library. If I match them to the library, they are sure enough there and it seems that after the metadata in device update, that this then sticks permanently. I brought this up previously and the suggestion was made that it related to my keeping my Calibre database on Dropbox, i.e., actually pointing it to a Dropbox folder, not copying it there after each use. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me since it seems like it must do some kind of match when the device is connected to know what is new. I used to keep Calibre open for long periods of time, but don't do that any more, so right after I have done an update like this I have gotten out of Calibre so it should have a clean relationship to the database. Clarification, perhaps?

Getting back to the original question: this can happen if there are two calibre libraries containing the "same" book. The problem is that the books are not the same. Calibre assigns a unique identifier to a book in the library. When you do a "book match", that identifier is stored on the device. If later you connect the device to a different library then the identifier can be changed, meaning that the match to the first library is lost.

Bottom line, it isn't a good idea to have multiple libraries that contain the same books.

[TdeV]

I'm running o/s version 1.4.3 on Nook Color and there is no Calibre Companion in the online Shop. There doesn't seem to be any "search for upgrades" feature.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by TdeV

I'm running o/s version 1.4.3 on Nook Color and there is no Calibre Companion in the online Shop. There doesn't seem to be any "search for upgrades" feature.

CC requires Android 2.3 or higher. You can install a newer version of Android on the Nook Color (see this post), but the NC is so low-powered with so little memory that I don't think this is a particularly good idea.

[tamhas]

BTW, just to be clear, Theresa and I are together. My issue with the dropped connections is, I think, now answered and I know how to avoid it. But, the Dropbox issue is really the same on both threads, i.e., the whole reason for having the catalog in Dropbox was to be able to access it from two devices. I did that first; now Theresa is trying to do it. Her needs are somewhat more demanding than mine, but not fundamentally different. We have also been talking about working out of a common catalog to keep things in better sync.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by tamhas

BTW, just to be clear, Theresa and I are together. My issue with the dropped connections is, I think, now answered and I know how to avoid it. But, the Dropbox issue is really the same on both threads, i.e., the whole reason for having the catalog in Dropbox was to be able to access it from two devices. I did that first; now Theresa is trying to do it. Her needs are somewhat more demanding than mine, but not fundamentally different. We have also been talking about working out of a common catalog to keep things in better sync.

Who is Theresa - and what 'both threads' ? And how are we supposed who is 'with' who. Is Theresa TDeV ? If so how are we supposed to know that?

BR

[chaley]

Originally Posted by TdeV

I'm running o/s version 1.4.3 on Nook Color and there is no Calibre Companion in the online Shop. There doesn't seem to be any "search for upgrades" feature.

I did a little research. The Nook Color runs Android 2.3 so can run CC. However, as I said earlier that tablet is very memory-constrained and rather slow. CC will occasionally have trouble displaying covers, and if there are many books on the device then sometimes "grouping" (searching) will fail.

CC is not available in the Nook App Store. When we asked the Nook team they answered saying that they did not want our app because it put a hole in the wall around their garden. However, some Nook tablets have access to Google Play (not sure if the NC is one of them) so you might be able to get CC free or paid there.

If you want to try CC I strongly recommend you try the free version so that you can see what CC does and be sure that CC and calibre can communicate on your network.

[tamhas]

Theresa = TdeV. The other thread is here https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...29#post3072729
I thought it had been mentioned earlier.

[tamhas]

The real killer for me about CC is the need to have the Windows box up. If we go traveling for 2 weeks we really don't want to leave the box awake all that time. Even when we are here, a lot of reading happens in the evening when her box is asleep. The only computer here that does not go to sleep is the Linux mail server ... although I am exploring how to make that go away and I don't know how we would maintain it there.

Is there a file sharing service which provides better control over access ... I'm not expecting it to suddenly be multi-user, but that would do something like lock the file automatically while Calibre was open or something that would make this more transparent.

I suppose that I am still unclear why, given that there is a copy on my disk where all the usual file controls should be available with Dropbox syncing in the background and no other users why it should lose data.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by tamhas

The real killer for me about CC is the need to have the Windows box up. If we go traveling for 2 weeks we really don't want to leave the box awake all that time. Even when we are here, a lot of reading happens in the evening when her box is asleep. The only computer here that does not go to sleep is the Linux mail server ... although I am exploring how to make that go away and I don't know how we would maintain it there.

You said this before and I will answer you again: CC does *not* require the server to be up 24/7. In fact, CC does not require a server at all. You use calibre to transfer your library, or as much of it as you wish, to CC on your device. From that point CC and your device can be off line. No servers, no cloud, no internet at all.

[theducks]

Calibre (and the content server) runs fine on Linux

CC don't care what OS the server is (it can even be a MAC).
It is all about connectivity

[tamhas]

Ah, OK, I was understanding that CC was related to the mentions of calibre-server. So, is it rather that one "publishes" the Calibre library to the device and then one has CC and the library in the device off line?

Didn't you mention that you could update a couple of things like whether a book was read? Is there then a process to update that back in the library on the PC?

Is the Calibre side of this publish and update a part of standard Calibre or are there Calibre plugins for the purpose? What does one do physically to do the updates ... connect via USB so the Calibre sees it as a device?

In my current library, I have both the Kindle and EPub versions of all the books. We are trying to figure how to best sync her library and mine. If she has both, is it going to be easy to push only the ePub to the Android device?

[tamhas]

Right, but if the Library is on Linux, where is one doing the update?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by tamhas

Ah, OK, I was understanding that CC was related to the mentions of calibre-server. So, is it rather that one "publishes" the Calibre library to the device and then one has CC and the library in the device off line?

One of CC's modes is to appear to calibre as a device, connnected by WiFi instead of a cable. All of calibre's device-related functions are available. Books you "send" to the device are on the device, managed by CC.

Didn't you mention that you could update a couple of things like whether a book was read? Is there then a process to update that back in the library on the PC?

Calibre and CC exchange information when CC connects as a wireless device (not the content server mode). Read information is synced up from CC and changes to metadata in calibre are synced down to CC.

Is the Calibre side of this publish and update a part of standard Calibre or are there Calibre plugins for the purpose? What does one do physically to do the updates ... connect via USB so the Calibre sees it as a device?

It is part of standard calibre, maintained by me. Connections use WiFi, not cable. Calibre sees CC as a device. As said above, connecting CC as a device triggers a bunch of syncing and updates.

In my current library, I have both the Kindle and EPub versions of all the books. We are trying to figure how to best sync her library and mine. If she has both, is it going to be easy to push only the ePub to the Android device?

You choose what calibre can send to CC and the priority for choosing if there is more than one format available. That choice would depend on the reader app(s) you install on the device.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by tamhas

Right, but if the Library is on Linux, where is one doing the update?

I run calibre GUI on a windows machine. I run the content server on a VPS in a data center somewhere. I use dropbox to transfer changes from my windows machine to the VPS. This works because calibre-server does not modify the library. The thread How to set up a content server on a VPS? might help understand this.