Whispersync not working with Calibre ebooks

[eschwartz]

You will need to convert it to embed the cover art in the file -- .mobi is an old format, and doesn't properly support embedding cover metadata. AZW3 fixed that, but AZW3 is not supported by the Personal Documents service.

Send-to-Kindle will extract and use the cover, but it will have an ugly Personal banner covering the bottom.

[RMOP]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

You will need to convert it to embed the cover art in the file -- .mobi is an old format, and doesn't properly support embedding cover metadata. AZW3 fixed that, but AZW3 is not supported by the Personal Documents service.

Send-to-Kindle will extract and use the cover, but it will have an ugly Personal banner covering the bottom.

OK...if I embed the art in an AZW3 (not AZW), Send-to-Kindle won't accept the file. If I convert to .mobi, the art won't even get properly embedded. Sounds like lose-lose to me. Or am I still missing something? Thanks for your patient replies.

[eschwartz]

Convert to AZW3, everything works beautifully, except send-to-Kindle refuses it.
Convert to MOBI, and the cover art is locked in -- so if you got a MOBI and downloaded replacement covers, it won't embed and you need to reconvert.
AZW3 and EPUB support updating the cover after the fact.


MOBI must be created with the cover art, not applied afterward.

[RMOP]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Convert to AZW3, everything works beautifully, except send-to-Kindle refuses it.
Convert to MOBI, and the cover art is locked in -- so if you got a MOBI and downloaded replacement covers, it won't embed and you need to reconvert.
AZW3 and EPUB support updating the cover after the fact.


MOBI must be created with the cover art, not applied afterward.

Thanks. Getting there. So...can Calibre "convert" MOBI to MOBI (with a different output filename) and thus embed the cover art? Or is the conversion to MOBI of necessity from a different format (as would be assumed)?

[eschwartz]

calibre can convert from one format back to the same format. That is exactly what people who want to replace MOBI covers typically do.

You can do that via the cli.
Or in the library GUI -- in which case you will end up with an ORIGINAL_FMT and a FMT.
The ORIGINAL_FMT is a backup and is used for future conversions to reduce the lossy nature of converting again and again.

[RMOP]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

calibre can convert from one format back to the same format. That is exactly what people who want to replace MOBI covers typically do.

You can do that via the cli.
Or in the library GUI -- in which case you will end up with an ORIGINAL_FMT and a FMT.
The ORIGINAL_FMT is a backup and is used for future conversions to reduce the lossy nature of converting again and again.

I realize I'm putting my ignorance on public display, but I'm still not quite getting this. I just took an ePub file (actually generated from an AZW3, which itself came from a .DOC which went through the Send-to-Kindle process), and converted it to MOBI. I then used the Send-to-Kindle routine. It showed up on my account and my Kindle, but still w/o the cover art displayed.

[eschwartz]

Err, doesn't happen on my device?

Hmm, which device do you have? Your profile doesn't mention any Kindles...

[RMOP]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Err, doesn't happen on my device?

Hmm, which device do you have? Your profile doesn't mention any Kindles...

Wow. My profile was seriously stale. At least it's a post-Palm|TX profile...Updated. The main device of interest is the actual Kindle Paperwhite, though the absence of cover art on Send-to-Kindle items is, for me, a cross-platform problem. I'm sure this is not that difficult if one knows what one's doing, which I think I don't as of yet. Thanks.

[eschwartz]

Is it possible your Output preferences for MOBI say to create a MOBI of type "both"? If so, Amazon will accept it and send you an AZW3, but without a cover.

The PW *should* work just fine...

[RMOP]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Is it possible your Output preferences for MOBI say to create a MOBI of type "both"? If so, Amazon will accept it and send you an AZW3, but without a cover.

The PW *should* work just fine...

Possible? Certainly, but I checked (didn't know of those options), and it was set to OLD. Perhaps it should be NEW? Well, I formatted the original source file with MSFT Word, which of course Calibre can't use. So, I'm wondering how best to approach this. Take the .azw files back from my Kindle account and convert to .mobi with the cover attachment and re-send to Kindle? Or is there a better way. Thanks.

[thatworkshop]

Update: According to this link on Amazon, it SHOULD work!!! Aaarrrghhh.

Ok, instead of creating a new thread, I'll post here.
The issue is that my personal documents get synced FROM my Kindle device to my Kindle app (Android) and I nicely see the highlights I previously put on my device... But the other way, if I read a few page on my Android Kindle app and highlight a few paragraphs of my interest, nothing changes forward on my Kindle device... Anyone else can feel my pain?

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by Governa

Ok I've been doing quite a bit more testing and can confirm that the method I've quoted above fixes all the Whispersync gremlins I was having. Whenever I get an ebook that refuses to sync pages across devices, going MOBI>EPUB>MOBI fixes it permanently.

This is interesting. Recently I had a couple Calibre ebooks that wouldn't sync. I resent them to Send-to-Kindle, and the second time it worked.

I will admit that before re-sending, I did correct a couple typos, so the books weren't exactly the same, but I can't imagine fixing typos would make any difference in syncing.

This makes me think the problem in my case was on Amazon's end and not a conversion problem as I didn't do the MOBI>EPUB>MOBI conversion first (didn't find this thread until now).

I'm not dismissing the MOBI>EPUB>MOBI fix. In fact, I'd really like to figure out what MOBI coding issues will prevent syncing so I can prevent sync problems before they happen. Nothing worse than settling in for a good read, turning on my Kindle, and finding I've lost my place!

[Gondolkodo]

Originally Posted by Governa

...
I keep all my Calibre eBooks in two formats: EPUB and MOBI. All I did was:

1- delete all EPUB files, I was then left with MOBI files only;
2- convert those MOBI files to EPUB;
3- delete all MOBI files, I was then left with EPUB files only;
4- convert those EPUB files to MOBI.
...

I ran into the same issue.
I have an old mobi book (I converted it about 2 years ago) with mobi-asin, and that syncs flawlessly, but what I converted 3 days ago doesn't, so I tested your method. I converted it to EPUB, deleted the original MOBI, converted from EPUB to MOBI, removed the book from my Kindle Paperwhite 2, synced with Calibre and I still get the "Unable to retrieve the furthest location read" message. It has mobi-asin, furthermore Amazon (ASIN) ID, ISBN, Goodreads ID, Google ID, etc.
My PW runs with the 5.7.3 firmware. I would like to sync with the Android app.
Does anyone else run into the same issue?

[shamanNS]

IIRC unless you have very very old version of Kindle for Android app you can't sync last page read between Android device and Kindle eInk device for USB sideloaded books (=books not associated with your Amazon account = books that are not bought from Amazon & not send to your "Cloud" space), because there will be no Sync button in Android app. (the app keeps a database with list of ASIN(s) and no match in database >>> no sync button for that book).
Kindle to Kindle sync works (worked last time I checked) for old mobi format but for azw3/kf8 books you get that error.

[Gondolkodo]

Ah, thank you shamanNS, I didn't know the Android version of the Kindle is so tricky.