[Device Plugin] Kobo Touch Extended Driver

[Chris_77]

Hello, it's me again ^^

I find a way to do what i wanted : first i convert the epub into kepub with Kepub output plugin, and transfert them to my Kobo through base driver and it's perfect ^^

Thanks for all.

[davidfor]

Sorry, but that will probably change in the near future. The single quote in the filename causes a problem. I should have fixed this ages ago, but will now. As it is a small change, I will probably do it when the next firmware is released and I bump the supported firmware version number.

[molier]

Hi there. For some books covers do not get updated on my Aura HD. Most of the books are fine and in KEPUB format. Some books however do not get any cover. Is this a known issue?

[jgoguen]

Do you have a book that doesn't get a cover generated? I'll need both the generated KePub and the source file.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by molier

Hi there. For some books covers do not get updated on my Aura HD. Most of the books are fine and in KEPUB format. Some books however do not get any cover. Is this a known issue?

Originally Posted by jgoguen

Do you have a book that doesn't get a cover generated? I'll need both the generated KePub and the source file.

I have this sometimes but the same happens with the normal driver.
I use the Kobo Utility's to upload the cover separately and that works all of the time.
But I can't figure out why this happen.
On my newest book there is a big cover included,but it shows only a small thumbnail of it.
In this example on the Kepub (left) is a big one, on the epub (right ) a small one, same book, but it happens also the other way around..





The next book is an kepub, the picture is not displayed as a cover in the library, and it isn't displayed in the sleepmodus,but it is there.



On the left, you see there is a cover, on the right, it just doesn't display it.
If it doesn't appear in sleep modus, it doesn't appear in the library thumbnails to.
It looks like the database doesn't process it well.



You see left, on the current book, no picture, on the right the tile with the library, one book has no picture.



Another book in the library list (kepub, second in the list) doesn't show a picture,while it is in calibre and it is in the book..

[jgoguen]

Do you have a couple books you could send? I'd like the source ePub and generated KePub for:

- ePub with a normal cover that shows up badly after converting to KePub.
- ePub where the cover image is displayed differently in any major way from the KePub (the first image you posted is a good example).

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by jgoguen

Do you have a couple books you could send? I'd like the source ePub and generated KePub for:

- ePub with a normal cover that shows up badly after converting to KePub.
- ePub where the cover image is displayed differently in any major way from the KePub (the first image you posted is a good example).

Stupid thing is,when I send both books,from both sources in random order to both device,the result is not the same,so if I send the same book again after delete from the reader,the next time it is okay.. I can't give any idea why it happen and I don't think it is the driver itself,because if it was, it should happen every time again.. I would send you gladly the kepubs (all they are social drm protected and copyrighted) but I can't guarantee that they give you the same error.. there is nothing common also, so it is not a book with a .png that go's wrong all the time.. I really can't pinpoint a cause.. it just happens..it doesn't bother me,if I want I sent the cover with the util..but it randomly happens..

[milady133]

Hi Nick,
I'm sure it is related to the internal structure of the KePub.
Maybe the first time you sent the book you where using an older version of Calibre and the plugin, and the plug-in didn't identified the cover in a way that Kobo could recognize the cover.
When you deleted the book from Kobo, the data related to the book, including the cover, was deleted from the database, and the next time you sent the book you were using a newer version of Calibre and the plug-in, and the cover was correctly identified.
I manually edit the Metadata in my books when I add them to Calibre to ensure that things like the cover are correctly identified, but I have found that some older books that I bought before having my first Kobo don't show the cover. These books don't have a specific property for the cover in the Metadata, I began adding it because of the cover problem, but I don't know if it's still necessary, maybe newer versions of Calibre and the plug-in have solved this problem, I haven't tried to add an old book for some time.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by milady133

Hi Nick,
I'm sure it is related to the internal structure of the KePub.
Maybe the first time you sent the book you where using an older version of Calibre and the plugin, and the plug-in didn't identified the cover in a way that Kobo could recognize the cover.
When you deleted the book from Kobo, the data related to the book, including the cover, was deleted from the database, and the next time you sent the book you were using a newer version of Calibre and the plug-in, and the cover was correctly identified.
I manually edit the Metadata in my books when I add them to Calibre to ensure that things like the cover are correctly identified, but I have found that some older books that I bought before having my first Kobo don't show the cover. These books don't have a specific property for the cover in the Metadata, I began adding it because of the cover problem, but I don't know if it's still necessary, maybe newer versions of Calibre and the plug-in have solved this problem, I haven't tried to add an old book for some time.

Sorry, I update the books on my reader frequently als I never have >20 on it (I don't understand why people wants to have hundreds of already read books on their device) and every book I add to calibre, has correct metadata and covers. ( I check them all when adding to Calibre,then update metadata for my catalog)
It is not a structural error in the book, first I check them with flightcrew, and if I add books to my reader,and re-add them,it is with the same version of calibre.
I don't add old books to the reader,simply because I already read it, but I tried it with 2 more then 6 year old books and they are there perfectly with cover,so it has nothing to do with old books.
If it was the book, it would happen again with the same book over and over again,also on the second reader but it doesn't.

I only support the message of molier,that it happens to me also that covers are not displayed,in random order,on random devices with both kepub and epubs,new or old.
Every book in Calibre has it's own cover file and it's own metadata file.
Database check for error by Kobobooks Utility plugin says nothing is wrong.
It doesn't bother me, because I use the sleepcover so normally I don't see the covers in sleepmodus at all.
When select it from the library list I can see there is no cover displayed,but I don't care for that to because the thumbnails are so small that i can't read them well.
The book not displayed on the homescreen doesn't bother me also because I read from sleep and don't use the homescreen at all.

I never convert ebooks,it is just import,edit metadata,send it to the device.
I wish it was due to old books,because then I could reproduce it.

[milady133]

Then I can't think a reason why a book doesn't show a cover the first time you send it to the device and you get the cover when you delete it and send it the second time, unless it isn't the Kobo reader the one extracting the cover, but Calibre updating the cover in the Kobo database, when the entry for the book is already created, something similar to what happens with series information, only it isn't updated on connection but on resending the book.
Kobo can be a bit tricky to interpret cover metadata. A lot of reading programs use the opf:cover tag (sorry, I'm not in front of my computer so I don't know the exact syntax), but I don't know why, with some books, I need to add some extra piece in the files declaration part of the opf file to get the book cover identified. And that extra piece throws a warning message when I validate the epub with Sigil, although it causes no problems, at least with the reading programmes I have tried: Adobe, Mantano, and Kobo, of course. Sorry I can't give more details on the exact properties I'm using, I found them in this forum, but I need to access my computer to get them.
I'm one of those strange people hoarding books on my ereaders :-). I could delete some of them after reading, but there are a lot of favourites I re-read from time to time, on a whim, and those go to every new ereader I put my hands on, because I don't know when the mood for re-reading is going to strike, and I don't switch on my computer every day so having my books available is important. Besides, my friends and family know I'm a bookworm, and I get asked for reading recommendations, if I carry my library with me, I can give them those recommendations taking a look into my shelves and the book blurb

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by milady133

Then I can't think a reason why a book doesn't show a cover the first time you send it to the device and you get the cover when you delete it and send it the second time, unless it isn't the Kobo reader the one extracting the cover, but Calibre updating the cover in the Kobo database, when the entry for the book is already created, something similar to what happens with series information, only it isn't updated on connection but on resending the book.
Kobo can be a bit tricky to interpret cover metadata.

I can agree with a lot of this,but then,if it should be happening at the first time, it should be happening on the second reader the first time to, and that isn't the case (for me, as I do't see any reaction anymore from "molier" anymore which is a bit strange when you report something and then don't respond anymore)
My current situation, i have 2 Glo Hd's (identical firmware) which contain identical books.
Lets call them device A and B, when I add books I add them on both,but if it was the metadata then the books should have no cover on both.
But the book who has no cover on device A,have it on device B and vice versa.
If book "sample1" would have an error in the metadata, it should be wrong displayed on both device A and B if the wrong metadata was the cause.
But it doesn't, it seems randomly.
I use only calibre to send the books to the devices, I don't have even kobo's desktop software installed.
By example, title "sample1" will have a cover error at device A, not on B.
Title "sample2"will have an error on device B, but not on A.
If it was the metadata, both books will have an error on both devices.
I don't know why it happens.. maybe there is a hole on the internal cards where the covers leaking trough, i will watch my pillow the coming days

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by milady133

Then I can't think a reason why a book doesn't show a cover the first time you send it to the device and you get the cover when you delete it and send it the second time, unless it isn't the Kobo reader the one extracting the cover, but Calibre updating the cover in the Kobo database, when the entry for the book is already created, something similar to what happens with series information, only it isn't updated on connection but on resending the book.
Kobo can be a bit tricky to interpret cover metadata. A lot of reading programs use the opf:cover tag (sorry, I'm not in front of my computer so I don't know the exact syntax), but I don't know why, with some books, I need to add some extra piece in the files declaration part of the opf file to get the book cover identified. And that extra piece throws a warning message when I validate the epub with Sigil, although it causes no problems, at least with the reading programmes I have tried: Adobe, Mantano, and Kobo, of course. Sorry I can't give more details on the exact properties I'm using, I found them in this forum, but I need to access my computer to get them.

For kepubs, the cover is identified in the manifest of the OPF. The cover will be an entry with properties set to "cover-image". If there isn't one, then no cover will be used. When generating the kepub, the driver tries to work out which image is the cover and adds the property. If it can't do this, then the title and format cover will be used. For epubs, the cover is simply the first page of the book.

I have seen the problem reported for both epubs and kepubs. I'm pretty sure it isn't the books as it doesn't happen for all the sizes. If all the sizes end up as the title/format cover, then it probably is something wrong in the book.

Plus, it seems to happen after the initial generation of the cover. By that, I mean that the cover will get displayed and a couple of days later, I'll notice the cover has gone missing. With this, a possibility is that the generated cover was not written to the disk properly but it is in the memory cache. When the cache is cleared and the image file is reread, it doesn't work and the title/format cover is used. This definitely happened with firmware 3.16.10 and 3.17.0, but that was caused by the sickel reboots. With that, I would find a zero size file for the generated cover. For each of these, the title/format cover would be used. But, this isn't happening with 3.17.3, so the cause is something else.

[milady133]

Originally Posted by davidfor

For kepubs, the cover is identified in the manifest of the OPF. The cover will be an entry with properties set to "cover-image". If there isn't one, then no cover will be used.

Yeah! The cover-image property is what I'm manually adding to my epubs since I own a Kobo reader to ensure the cover is identified, I don't let the Kobo driver try to guess which image is. I haven't seen that behavior in which Kobo doesn't identify the cover in some of my books, I have seen it only in the books where I didn't set that property previously, and that only in some of the books.
I read kepubs in Kobo, by the way, I keep epubs in Calibre and I let the plug-in convert them to KePub on the fly when it sends them.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by milady133

Yeah! The cover-image property is what I'm manually adding to my epubs since I own a Kobo reader to ensure the cover is identified, I don't let the Kobo driver try to guess which image is. I haven't seen that behavior in which Kobo doesn't identify the cover in some of my books, I have seen it only in the books where I didn't set that property previously, and that only in some of the books.
I read kepubs in Kobo, by the way, I keep epubs in Calibre and I let the plug-in convert them to KePub on the fly when it sends them.

Sorry..i don't want to be rude or ranting, but this still has nothing to do with why the cover disappears.. "corrupt" data in the OPF is visible only when added and not displayed the cover from the beginning
As I try to make clear,when this is the case it would be displayed wrong on both readers at the same time as it isn't correct from the beginning at both devices.
It does not explain why it disappear on reader A,but not on B or vice versa.
As davidfor (Author of Calibre) explains, he is pretty sure it has nothing to do with the book itself (if that was the case it would be not visible on just one device,but both) and he also confirm what I was thinking but was not sure about (I thought i went crazy) the present of the cover in first,then disappear later..

If it was due "driver guessing" of the cover,then the driver must be going nuts because it should be guessing not to send the cover to device A and 20 seconds later it would be guessing for the same book that it will send the cover to device B.. without changing anything to the source book at all.
If it was due to an error in the cover-image property it would not visible on both devices, nor dissapear later on just one of the devices.
So it can be a possibility at certain books, but not in this case.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by Nick_1964

Sorry..i don't want to be rude or ranting, but this still has nothing to do with why the cover disappears.. "corrupt" data in the OPF is visible only when added and not displayed the cover from the beginning
As I try to make clear,when this is the case it would be displayed wrong on both readers at the same time as it isn't correct from the beginning at both devices.
It does not explain why it disappear on reader A,but not on B or vice versa.
As davidfor (Author of Calibre) explains, he is pretty sure it has nothing to do with the book itself (if that was the case it would be not visible on just one device,but both) and he also confirm what I was thinking but was not sure about (I thought i went crazy) the present of the cover in first,then disappear later..

If it was due "driver guessing" of the cover,then the driver must be going nuts because it should be guessing not to send the cover to device A and 20 seconds later it would be guessing for the same book that it will send the cover to device B.. without changing anything to the source book at all.
If it was due to an error in the cover-image property it would not visible on both devices, or dissapear later on just one of the devices.
So it can be a possibility at certain books, but not in this case.

Do both devices have the same FW?