cloud collections question

[gteague]

i'm just now exploring using collections from the device and the amazon page because calibre can't support them. <sigh>

i apologize in advance because just trying to describe the behavior is going to get real confusing real fast.

i have created a collection using the amazon page called /Amazon/ to hold all my amazon books (to separate them from the ones i sideload from calibre).

i added all 56 of my books to this collection using the web page. all 56 items are downloaded to my kindle.

after a sync, the /Amazon/ collection showed up on my oasis2, but with only 49 items when i used the /downloaded/ tab, but the collection shows 56 items when selecting the /all/ tab.

i restarted the kindle and sync'd like 6 times, but i can't get the kindle to recognize that there are 56 items in the /Amazon/ collection. i was under the impression that my collections would sync automatically between the amazon site and the kindle. where is my misunderstanding?

one huge problem is the horrific amazon excuse for a user interface to sort items. it's really hard to describe how badly it sucks for anyone who is as ocd as i am and am driven to organize down to the last nit.

tks, /guy

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by gteague

i'm just now exploring using collections from the device and the amazon page because calibre can't support them. <sigh>

i apologize in advance because just trying to describe the behavior is going to get real confusing real fast.

i have created a collection using the amazon page called /Amazon/ to hold all my amazon books (to separate them from the ones i sideload from calibre).

i added all 56 of my books to this collection using the web page. all 56 items are downloaded to my kindle.

after a sync, the /Amazon/ collection showed up on my oasis2, but with only 49 items when i used the /downloaded/ tab, but the collection shows 56 items when selecting the /all/ tab.

i restarted the kindle and sync'd like 6 times, but i can't get the kindle to recognize that there are 56 items in the /Amazon/ collection. i was under the impression that my collections would sync automatically between the amazon site and the kindle. where is my misunderstanding?

one huge problem is the horrific amazon excuse for a user interface to sort items. it's really hard to describe how badly it sucks for anyone who is as ocd as i am and am driven to organize down to the last nit.

tks, /guy

Are you seeing 49 on the downloaded tab and 56 on the All tab?

If so then 7 books are not yet downloaded to your device. Select the All tab and page through looking for any without a black tick in the bottom left hand of the cover. Once all books have been downloaded then you will seem the same number on both All and downloaded. Also if you long press on the collection cover information will be displayed that tells you how many books your have in the collection and how many are downloaded to your device.

[Josieb1]

It also takes a few syncs for everything to show as expected.

[gteague]

ok, i finally figured out where the discrepancies were. first, for some reason 2-4 books didn't download. it's possible i missed them because amazon only allows 10 at a time and removes your checkmarks so you have to keep a mental note of where you were.

but the weird part was that i kept seeing a kindle users guide and a 2nd edition of it. but they didn't show up consistently and i didn't think they were included in the amazon count when showing the /books/ category. but i finally hit upon the /dictionary/ category and there were no less than 5 copies of the guides in there. i (ass)ume that every time i bought a kindle amazon added one automatically in that category. but there were no copies on my kindle.

anyway, i simply deleted them from amazon and it confirmed that amazon wasn't including them in the 56 count. very confusing and i'm glad i figured this out before i put back over 2500 of my calibre books.

at least now the numbers are matching, i have 56 books showing on amazon and 56 showing up in the /Amazon/ collection i created. the reason i had to create this category is that otherwise i won't know which books came from an amazon download and which from a calibre sideload. well, i could figure it out from calibre of course.

many thanks for the helpful tips--they got me there eventually and my ocd soul thanks you as well.

/guy

[Josieb1]

I'm glad you got it sorted. I'm a little OCD as well so I understand what's it like.

[gteague]

well, still not sorted. i had 56 books accounted for yesterday when i gave the all clear. i added one book after that and it showed up fine, giving me 57 showing in the cloud and on the kindle.

when i woke up today my kindle reported it had 55 books downloaded. so i went through the /all/ list again and two books which i had downloaded yesterday now said they weren't on the kindle.

not going to panic yet about it, it's possible i did something when sleepy that i don't remember. except i for sure didn't delete those two books from the kindle. but i'm still going to make sure the cloud/kindle/cloud process works correctly before i start dumping in my offline library in huge chunks.

/guy

[gteague]

i've discovered that just wanting a count to match is much more complicated than first blush. here's the caveats:

* the dictionary is in a ?collection? called /dictionary which doesn't show up in /collections/. it's counted as a book on the cloud and the kindle. i'm pretty sure.

* your collections are counted just like books on the kindle, but not in the cloud

* when you sort on /on my device/ on calibre, you don't get the same list as when you show the device main memory. [later note: it's because calibre doesn't recognize the new .kfx files and only shows the .azw files]

* i had forgotten i loaded about 10 calibre books which aren't in my amazon cloud. if you happen to load a calibre book which you've already downloaded from amazon cloud, calibre flags it as two books under one title, but the kindle only shows one title. you can sort this out by looking in the /kindle/ folder because the calibre copy is in an /author/ folder and is a mobi format whereas the amazon copy is .azw or kfx (?) and has a matching .sdr folder covers and stuff i'd think.

considering all this new knowledge and my desire to keep things sorted neatly in the future, i've erased all books on the kindle except that huge webster's unabridged dictionary i bought on sale the other day since it took forever to download even on wifi and i've downloaded the other 56 from the amazon cloud.

so, right now all is right in the ocd world. i have 57 books from amazon. i have 7 collections. and indeed the number '64' is showing up on the kindle under /all/ and under /downloads/. in the kindle folder on the desktop, there are 114 items which is 57 single files and 57 folders matching those titles. but, as i add in calibre books, this number will become pretty meaningless. except that .... if i remember to add each new amazon purchase to my /Amazon/ collection, i'll always have a list of those purchases on the kindle. i also need to remember to check the /device main memory/ in calibre to make sure this number matches the amazon purchase number so i can avoid duplicates.

ahhhhhhhhh! i feel some of the tension ebbing away now even though i won't rest easy until it's done indexing all these books again--most of the 57 are huge reference works and textbooks.

/guy