Since Kobo update, series information doesn't transfer to device

[theducks]

Device database is ON the device.
Device (plugin) settings are in the Calibre Configuration folder (I hope you have made a backup. FWIW Export is a FULL backup of all Libraries and the user configs. Plugins are usually downloadable, but the settings and customization takes time. Backup saves grief)

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Liudprand

One (I think!) final follow-up question. In all the documentation, and on this forum, can I ask precisely what "device database" refers to? I mean, should I understand it to include everything - collections and series information, reading progress for each book, bookmarks, highlights, annotations, etc. (i.e. all metadata)? Or is it more limited than that?

Kobo ereaders use an SQLite database to contain all the information they consider is necessary about the books on the device. When you sideload a book, the book is imported. This gets the metadata from the book and the ToC and puts it into the database. When you buy a book and download, it the same thing happens. As you read the books, the status is stored in the database. Collections are stored in the database. Annotations are stored in the database. And lots of statistics are stored (and luckily or unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint, most are not in an accessible format). Pretty much everything except the actual books and covers, and the settings are stored in the database.

EDIT: And, by extension, is it possible in principle to back all of that information up within Calibre, and then restore it on, say, a new device. And, if so, does that device have to be exactly the same model - or would it work when switching to a different model of Kobo reader?

The Kobo Utilities plugin can store the reading status. It does that by reading the database. The reading status can be restored to another Kobo device. It doesn't matter what Kobo device. I frequently use this to sync the status for books between my ereaders. But, it doesn't store the time spent reading and some other stats, so they cannot be restored.

The Annotations plugin can get the annotations and store them in calibre against the books. But, this cannot be restored to the device. Not enough information is saved. That is not likely to change. But, one day I plan to store the annotations so that the calibre viewer can use them. When that happens, I might look at going the other way as well.

You can backup the database in its entirety. Some people have had success in putting this on a new ereader with a change to one of the tables in the database. But, it doesn't always work. I've never bothered to try as I'm not that tied to the stats and don't use annotations for long term things. They are mainly to mark errors to fix or things to look up later. And if I did ever to transfer annotations, I know exactly how to do it.

There is plenty of discussion on this in this in the Kobo forum. The people who have done it have said what was needed. If you look for the threads, you will see I have stated how I would do it depending on exactly what it was they wanted to achieve.

[Liudprand]

Thanks again!

I'm tantalisingly close to having set up my system to handle collections info. properly. But I have one remaining problem.

I now have a "Collections" column, with comma-separated, tag-style information. I had no problem (eventually!) transferring collections information from the device into Calibre. But now I can't seem to figure out how to do the reverse - i.e. now all of my collections are defined on Calibre, I want to update, add new collections, etc. *from* Calibre onto the device. I did have metadata management set to manual, so as to avoid any further mishaps. I've now switched it to automatic - but collections information still fails to update on the device when I plug it in. This is especially baffling because series information updates on the device with no problem.

Once again, I feel like I suspect my mother feels when I'm trying, for the 99th time, to explain to her what cutting-and-pasting is. But if you could get me past this final challenge, I'd be very grateful!

[Liudprand]

(I did search other posts here for a solution, by the way - but the only thing I could find was the suggestion to set metadata management to automatic, which I've already done.)

[davidfor]

At this point you have to decide how you want to define collections. Is there existing metadata in the library that you want to base the collections on? If so, use that column. This is why the tags column is mentioned so often with respect to collections. It is an obvious way to arrange the books. Or using Genre. And why Series was so popular. I have mentioned the types of columns I use for collections.

Or, you could just use your collections column. This has the way you have manually done it, so it might be the way to do it going forwards. That works especially if your collections are fairly ad hoc.

Having said that, I probably wouldn't use this column. I would probably create another, and copy the current values to it (using the search-and-replace). Then use one as a backup that you can restore from later if you don't like how whatever you were doing. Or at least have something to refer back to and see what you might be missing.

So basically, the next step it is choose the columns you want to use and set them as the collection columns in the driver. Then connect the device. You can always change later and the driver will update the collections the next time you connect.

[Liudprand]

Thanks for this.

I'm actually further along than you think. I discovered what the problem was (via Sirtel - to whom, many thanks): I hadn't added a hashtag before "collections" in the plugin settings. It now works fine - so far!

Thanks again.