Kobo series problems

[lee.hauser]

I have a Clara BW which I love, and a library I manage with Calibre. But something is wrong with my Series. I'm completely confused by the wiki entry on Kobo Shelves and Collections and have likely done something wrong there.

The difficulty I'm having is that for many (but not all) series on the device I have two entries, often (but not always) with the same series name. For example, I have two series listed for The Expanse. One has a single book in it, the first book in the series, Levianthan Wakes. The other series entry, with exactly the same name, has all 10 books. Both series have book covers. But I also have Deborah Harkness's All Souls series, but under two series titles -- "All Souls," with all five books, and "All Souls Series," with just one book. (I cannot find a reference to "All Souls Series" in that book's metadata in Calibre.) I have many series with one book in them, and even a series or two that are completely duplicated, though one copy of the series has no book covers.

In Calbre, I have all the books in all my series with metadata showing the correct series title in the Series field. In the Kobo Touch driver, I have Collections checked, Collections Columns checked and "series" (all lowercase) in the field, and Create Collections and Delete Empty Collections checked. I'm pretty sure I have something in the collections and series configurations mixed up, but I'm not sure what, and have no idea how to fix them.

I just installed the NickelSeries software, but I have no idea if this problem existed before that or not.

Thanks for any ideas ... even if they mean resetting the Kobo and loading up the library again.

[Sirtel]

Delete your series column from Collection settings. That's why there are double entries. The wiki article was written when Kobo didn't support series data for sideloaded books and the only way was to use series as collections. That information has been outdated for years.

You can base your collections on some other column (such as tags) or leave it empty, as you wish.

[lee.hauser]

Hi, thanks for your reply!

This doesn't seem to make any difference. Should the Collections box remain checked, even if I have "series" removed? The create and delete collections as well?

I removed the "series," synced the metadata, ejected, and saw no change. Then I restarted the Kobo, again without change. Then I unchecked Collections and tried the whole thing again, again with no change.

[Sirtel]

Hmm. Are all your books sideloaded, or are some of them downloaded from the Kobo store? If the latter, that might also create duplicate series. Tbh I don't know what to do in that case, as I sideload everything, even my Kobo purchases.

[lee.hauser]

Hi, the vast majority of my books are sideloaded, including everything I've classified as a series.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by lee.hauser

Hi, the vast majority of my books are sideloaded, including everything I've classified as a series.

If you're sure all the books appearing in duplicate series are sideloaded and not downloaded from Kobo, then there must be something wrong with their metadata. For example, are you sure you've never created a custom series column in calibre? Some people do this. It might not be visible in the book list.

Is your metadata management set to Automatic in calibre? If it's manual, your Kobo might not pick up the changes in the collection settings.

[lee.hauser]

Hi, it appears I have not created a custom Series column (though for a moment I thought maybe I had, back in the distant past). At least no custom columns appear in the list of columns, only the apparently default Series column. And yes, I do have metadata management set to Automatic.

Would it help to have Calibre do a fresh download of all metadata? I only have about 300 books in this library. For that matter, factory resetting the Kobo or creating an entirely new library from these books wouldn't be impossible; I'm retired, have time on my hands, and don't object to focussed tinkering.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by lee.hauser

Hi, it appears I have not created a custom Series column (though for a moment I thought maybe I had, back in the distant past). At least no custom columns appear in the list of columns, only the apparently default Series column. And yes, I do have metadata management set to Automatic.

Would it help to have Calibre do a fresh download of all metadata? I only have about 300 books in this library. For that matter, factory resetting the Kobo or creating an entirely new library from these books wouldn't be impossible; I'm retired, have time on my hands, and don't object to focussed tinkering.

Your doing it wrong. You don't need a custom series column. Just use the existing Series column. Then go to Preferences > Plugins and search for Kobo Touch. Then set it up to look exactly like this.



One thing to note. After you've added yur eBooks to youre Kobo and they've been imported, you have to connect your Kobo to your calibre library to then upload the metadata needed to add the series.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by lee.hauser

Would it help to have Calibre do a fresh download of all metadata? I only have about 300 books in this library.

I would check the metadata manually, one by one, if it's only 300 books. That way you can be sure it's correct. Auto-downloads can be messy.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by lee.hauser

Hi, it appears I have not created a custom Series column (though for a moment I thought maybe I had, back in the distant past). At least no custom columns appear in the list of columns, only the apparently default Series column. And yes, I do have metadata management set to Automatic.

Would it help to have Calibre do a fresh download of all metadata? I only have about 300 books in this library. For that matter, factory resetting the Kobo or creating an entirely new library from these books wouldn't be impossible; I'm retired, have time on my hands, and don't object to focussed tinkering.

It would not help to download metadata because you would still have to manually go through every single eBook and fix what's wrong and there will be errors. I've not seen a perfect metadata download. Even if it's just the description that needs to be fixed. This is why I do it manually for each book before I add it to my Kobo.

[lee.hauser]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I would check the metadata manually, one by one, if it's only 300 books. That way you can be sure it's correct. Auto-downloads can be messy.

OK, but what am I checking in my metadata? What is supposed to be correct? I have given every series a name, and every book in every series a number. The books show up in the series I've given them in the metadata, but some also show up in a series with a name that doesn't show in the metadata, or one book shows up alone in a duplicate series. None of these problems are apparent to me in Calibre, but only on the Kobo.

Just to see what would happen, I downloaded metadata for Deborah Harkness's The Black Bird Chronicle. This is a book that shows in Calibre as part of a series I have called "All Souls", but on the Kobo it shows up not only in that series, but as the only book in a series called "All Souls Series." But when I download the metadata, Calibre shows it in "All Souls Series" (which, as far as I can remember, it never showed up in before.) And on the Kobo, this book no longer appears as part of "All Souls," but only as part of "All Souls Series." And, suddenly, there's another "All Souls Series" on the Kobo, with another one of the books, which still appears in "All Souls." I'm completely confused.

I'm about to give up. Needless to say, I'm quite frustrated at the moment. I appreciate everyone's input.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by lee.hauser

OK, but what am I checking in my metadata? What is supposed to be correct? I have given every series a name, and every book in every series a number. The books show up in the series I've given them in the metadata, but some also show up in a series with a name that doesn't show in the metadata, or one book shows up alone in a duplicate series. None of these problems are apparent to me in Calibre, but only on the Kobo.

Just to see what would happen, I downloaded metadata for Deborah Harkness's The Black Bird Chronicle. This is a book that shows in Calibre as part of a series I have called "All Souls", but on the Kobo it shows up not only in that series, but as the only book in a series called "All Souls Series." But when I download the metadata, Calibre shows it in "All Souls Series" (which, as far as I can remember, it never showed up in before.) And on the Kobo, this book no longer appears as part of "All Souls," but only as part of "All Souls Series." And, suddenly, there's another "All Souls Series" on the Kobo, with another one of the books, which still appears in "All Souls." I'm completely confused.

I'm about to give up. Needless to say, I'm quite frustrated at the moment. I appreciate everyone's input.

Check that series names are consistent for all the books in a given series. In calibre, I mean. Your example how downloaded metadata populated your series column with different variations of the same series name is just the reason for checking. Downloaded metadata tends to be inconsistent and always requires manual checking/correcting.

Also check that author names are consistent. Otherwise you may end up with Maxwell M. Smith as three different authors - "Maxwell M. Smith", "Smith, Maxwell M.", "Maxwell M Smith", for example.

[lee.hauser]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Check that series names are consistent for all the books in a given series. In calibre, I mean. Your example how downloaded metadata populated your series column with different variations of the same series name is just the reason for checking. Downloaded metadata tends to be inconsistent and always requires manual checking/correcting.

Also check that author names are consistent. Otherwise you may end up with Maxwell M. Smith as three different authors - "Maxwell M. Smith", "Smith, Maxwell M.", "Maxwell M Smith", for example.

Right. And, as I've said, that's the problem...my series names are consistent, as are my author names. Until I downloaded the metadata for The Black Bird Oracle, "All Souls Series" didn't appear anywhere (that I could see, at least) in Calibre, and that book appeared in the series as I had named it, and all alone in "All Souls Series."

Again, to see what happens, I downloaded metadata for all five books in the series. The downloaded metadata populated "All Souls Series" in the series field for all five books (which is fine; I'm not that wedded to my own series title). On the Kobo, there's a new series with that name, with all five books in it. There's also a separate series entry with that name, with a single book in it (not The Black Bird Oracle).

Interestingly, the lone book showed as available for download. A quick check of a series that is completely duplicated has one series (without covers) available for download. I know it's looking at several sources of metadata; perhaps the one indicating available downloads is from Kobo? (This series was sideloaded, not purchased from the Kobo store.) I assume downloading metadata then refreshing the Kobo populates the Kobo database, even if it doesn't match what was sideloaded from Calibre? If that's the case, how does one rebuild the Kobo database?

I'm thinking of downloading the metadata for each series separately, to make the chore of checking metadata easier. I'd just love to get rid of these stray copies. Your advice has been helpful in giving me ideas of what to look for.

[Sirtel]

Is your Kobo connected to wifi? Do the duplicate series still show when it's offline?

Frankly, I'm somewhat baffled. I've never had anything like that happen on my Kobos, but then my Kobos are always offline and I never sync them to the Kobo servers. I have no idea what they would display if I kept wifi on.

[lee.hauser]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Is your Kobo connected to wifi? Do the duplicate series still show when it's offline?

Frankly, I'm somewhat baffled. I've never had anything like that happen on my Kobos, but then my Kobos are always offline and I never sync them to the Kobo servers. I have no idea what they would display if I kept wifi on.

I sometimes have it on wifi, but not lately for more than a few minutes (such as when I download Instapaper articles). I'm sure that's all that's needed to have Rakuten do whatever they want to my device. I typically, though not always, download even Kobo books and sideload them to the Kobo.

Obviously, I'm baffled as well. But it's really a quality of life issue; it isn't getting in the way of reading. It's just a symptom of my need to keep digital things neat and tidy.