Translator in Calibre became Author in Kobo

[chaley]

Originally Posted by theducks

I have no Plugboard for my Kobos.
My Library is Fn Ln

It just works. The Kobo indexes each Author (on the by Authors menu).
It shows by the order in Calibre (in the proper place for the name being indexed), but make additional entries for each Author listed.

Are you trying other ways to force this?

Are you talking to me?

AFAIK the Kobo requires comma-separated authors in FN LN form. My plugboard does that. Without it I get nonsense.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Kobo driver turns ampersands into commas. If it does then the second step in my plugboard, building a comma-separated list, is superfluous. That said, from calibre's viewpoint the plugboard makes a single author containing all the author names in comma-separated form, which works for me.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by chaley

Are you talking to me?

AFAIK the Kobo requires comma-separated authors in FN LN form. My plugboard does that. Without it I get nonsense.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Kobo driver turns ampersands into commas. If it does then the second step in my plugboard, building a comma-separated list, is superfluous. That said, from calibre's viewpoint the plugboard makes a single author containing all the author names in comma-separated form, which works for me.

That must be what the driver does, cuz it ain't me

[w00dent0p]

Originally Posted by chaley

All of my authors are in "LN, FN & LN2, FN2" format.

Mine too. But the issue with the specific book was an author (actually translator) under a different creator section in the metadata which didn't even appear in Calibre but which the L2 somehow got picked up as the author.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by w00dent0p

Mine too. But the issue with the specific book was an author (actually translator) under a different creator section in the metadata which didn't even appear in Calibre but which the L2 somehow got picked up as the author.

It sounds like calibre isn't updating the authors, perhaps because you haven't enabled sending metadata in the Kobo driver either/or set "Metadata Management" to automatic. This would force the L2 to read metadata from the OPF and authors wouldn't be fixed on the next connect. Also, if calibre is sending metadata and your authors are LN, FN then without the plugboard the authors on the L2 would be wrong, at least sorting incorrectly.

[w00dent0p]

Calibre is updating authors when I run polish, but in this particular problem case Calibre didn't remove an author that wasn't even exposed in Calibre. The L2 then used this author.

Metadata management is set to automatic.

I don't have the plugboard so for most books my L2 only shows the first author shown in Calibre, and I'm fine with that.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by w00dent0p

Calibre is updating authors when I run polish, but in this particular problem case Calibre didn't remove an author that wasn't even exposed in Calibre. The L2 then used this author.

Metadata management is set to automatic.

I don't have the plugboard so for most books my L2 only shows the first author shown in Calibre, and I'm fine with that.

I am having trouble making sense of this. I looked at the driver code and if the "Update metadata on device" is set then it (calibre) will update the authors on every connect, using the authors in calibre. The driver changes the L2 database.

Do you have "Update metadata on device" set?

[w00dent0p]

Sorry, the more I get into this, the more I struggle with terminology and what metadata comes from what source.

Except for this one particular book, everything works fine.

For this one particular book, I can see using Sigil that the original EPUB metadata contained two Creator entries, one for author and one for translator. When I import this book into Calibre, only the author is shown. I can then, for example, add a second author in Calibre, and run polish. I can then see in Sigil that there are now 3 creators, 2 authors from Calibre and the one original translator that's still there. The L2 then picked the translator to be the author (based on what rules, I don't know) and if it hadn't done that, I'd never have known that creator entry even existed, because it's never shown in Calibre.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by w00dent0p

Sorry, the more I get into this, the more I struggle with terminology and what metadata comes from what source.

Except for this one particular book, everything works fine.

For this one particular book, I can see using Sigil that the original EPUB metadata contained two Creator entries, one for author and one for translator. When I import this book into Calibre, only the author is shown. I can then, for example, add a second author in Calibre, and run polish. I can then see in Sigil that there are now 3 authors, 2 from Calibre and the one original translator that's still there. The L2 then picked the translator to be the author (based on what rules, I don't know) and if it hadn't done that, I'd never have known that creator entry even existed, because it's never shown in Calibre.

Asking again, do you have "Update metadata on device" set?

[w00dent0p]

Where is that setting?

Under 'Sending books to devices', metadata management is set to Automatic.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by w00dent0p

Where is that setting?

Under 'Sending books to devices', metadata management is set to Automatic.

It is in the driver preferences. If you have Kobo Utilities installed, go to its menu, select "Driver", then "Configure current driver". The setting is on the third tab, "Metadata, on device & advanced".

If you don't have KU installed or if you prefer, go to calibre Preferences / Plugins and search for kobotouch.

Note that if it isn't set, then setting it might really mess up your authors on the L2 unless you set the plugboard. If it is set then I am confused.

EDIT: it might be a bit different if you are using the kobotouch extended driver.

[w00dent0p]

Ok, thanks. I have 'Update metadata on the device' set.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by w00dent0p

Ok, thanks. I have 'Update metadata on the device' set.

Looking further at the code, the driver updates core metadata as long as a book "is_sideloaded". That seems to be False if a book was originally purchased, which seems to be determined by the file path on the book. Or perhaps by something in the OPF. It is hard to tell.

That leads to the question: was this book originally purchased from Kobo? Was it downloaded from the Kobo store to the device?

If you are willing, we could get a lot of information about what is happening by running calibre in debug mode then connecting your L2 then posting that log. The Kobo driver prints reams of info about what books it is processing and what it is doing with the metadata.

[w00dent0p]

Post #1, it was side-loaded.

But shouldn't the focus be on why Calibre isn't picking up or updating/removing the 2nd creator entry (for translator) when the book is first added to the library, or when the book is polished? I have no reason to think that the kobo driver is doing anything wrong.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by w00dent0p

Post #1, it was side-loaded.

But shouldn't the focus be on why Calibre isn't picking up or updating/removing the 2nd creator entry (for translator) when the book is first added to the library, or when the book is polished? I have no reason to think that the kobo driver is doing anything wrong.

How calibre manipulates the OPF is outside my remit.

As for the driver doing something wrong, as far as I can tell it doesn't use the OPF and doesn't care what it in it. It sends the authors from the calibre database, so it won't send the translator. Either:

• the kobo driver isn't sending the authors, which doesn't happen for me, or
• the kobo firmware is now ignoring what the driver is putting in the DB, which doesn't happen for me.

Example:

1. I picked a book on my L2 with a single author in calibre.
2. I added the author "delete aaa" in calibre.
3. Connected my L2.
4. Let the metadata update finish.
5. Ejected the device.

The author "delete aaa" is now in the authors page on the L2, but is not in the OPF of the book on the L2. In fact, the book file didn't change. It did the same thing when I removed "delete aaa"; it disappeared from the L2. This tells me that in my case the OPF isn't involved when determining authors.

My conclusion: something is preventing calibre from updating the authors on your L2 for that book, forcing the L2 to pull them from the OPF. There might be something in the OPF that is telling the driver to behave this way, i.e., whatever sets the "is_sideloaded" indication. Or whatever. I am out of ideas.

[w00dent0p]

I'd just emphasise that manually deleting the translator info from the original EPUB (the first 6 lines below) using Sigil, before adding to Calibre library, everything seemed golden.

Creator Sarah Death
Display Sequence 2
File As Death, Sarah
Id Attribute creator2
Role Translator
Scheme marc:relators
Creator Karin Smirnoff
File As Smirnoff, Karin
Id Attribute id
Role Author
Scheme marc:relators