Calibre metadata - authors with 0 books

[Uncle Robin]

I have deleted and recreated my metadata.calibre file several times recently, but still have dozens of authors showing in KOReader with"0" listed next to their names for the count of books. How do I delete these null authors so that they don't show up and add to the number of pages I have to click through?

[NiLuJe]

Hard to say without more details about the workflow and what you did, exactly.

(Wild guess: do the metadata.calibre cleanup from within a Nickel USBMS session, if you're still using the Kobo calibre driver).

[Uncle Robin]

Here's what I've tried, from stock and while running KOReader: Connect the device, delete the calibre.metadata file, open Calibre, run "update cached metadata on device", eject device. The impact on the 82 zero-book authors, zero.

EDIT: I just exited KOReader and confirmed that none of those 82 authors show up in the stock reader's list of authors on the device

[Uncle Robin]

Knowing that there are several "pages" of zero-book authors persisting in KOReader made me wonder: If multiple deletion/recreation of the calibre.metadata flie makes no difference to KOReader, would uninstalling KOReader itself and reinstalling it from scratch get rid of them? I have my default settings and gesture preferences saved elsewhere as backup.

[NiLuJe]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

while running KOReader

That is explicitly what I wanted you *NOT* to do ^^.

Try doing the same from within Nickel (run a Library scan via NM beforehand, though) .

[NiLuJe]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Knowing that there are several "pages" of zero-book authors persisting in KOReader made me wonder: If multiple deletion/recreation of the calibre.metadata flie makes no difference to KOReader, would uninstalling KOReader itself and reinstalling it from scratch get rid of them? I have my default settings and gesture preferences saved elsewhere as backup.

There's almost no persistent state for this, we might be building a cached Lua conversion of the JSON data (cache/calibre/books.dat), but that's it.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

That is explicitly what I wanted you *NOT* to do ^^.

Try doing the same from within Nickel (run a Library scan via NM beforehand, though) .

You'll notice that I said I had tried BOTH methods more than once

from stock and while running KOReader

I'm not sure how to "run a Library scan via NM" though - my NickelMenu has only KOReader in it.

[pazos]

Go to the plugin settings and disable the cache. Redo de search. The search will be performed on your pristine json file.

If that solves your issue it means calibre won't update the json mtime on rebuild (or fat32 oddities).

Cache speeds searchs quite a bit with many thousands of books but shouldn't be noticeable on the hundreds.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by pazos

Go to the plugin settings and disable the cache. Redo de search. The search will be performed on your pristine json file.

If that solves your issue it means calibre won't update the json mtime on rebuild (or fat32 oddities).

Cache speeds searchs quite a bit with many thousands of books but shouldn't be noticeable on the hundreds.

This is what I just tried:

1. Settings>Calibre UNCHECK "store metadata in cache"

2. Exit KOReader

3. Connect to my PC via USB, delete calibre.metadata.

4. Open Calibre, after it finished updating, select "update chached metadata on device."

5. Eject device. Open KOReader

6. Manage libraries>"rescan disk for calibre libraries" - found 1 calibre library with 852 books (the correct number of books actually on the device)

7. Check list of authors - all "zero book" authors still there.


One thing I'm curious about - you mention a "pristine json file". When I do a search of the device for *.json, there are 4 results listed, as shown in the screenshot. None appear to have anything to do with Calibre?

[pazos]

/mnt/onboard/calibre.metadata (or metadata.calibre, I don't remember) is the json file where calibre dumps the list of books on your device and their metadata. (the one detected by KO)

Please check it is there and give us its size.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by pazos

/mnt/onboard/calibre.metadata (or metadata.calibre, I don't remember) is the json file where calibre dumps the list of books on your device and their metadata. (the one detected by KO)

Please check it is there and give us its size.

It is there. It is the file I have been repeatedly deleting and recreating, as detailed above. The current version is 30 minutes old and 5.88MB (6029kb)

[pazos]

I'm out of ideas and I doubt it is related to the plugin we're discussing. Could you please paste a screenshot of the UI where you see all those authors with zero books?

IIRC books are counted by tags or series, but not by authors.

You can search books by name, authors or paths but that gives you still a list of books.

FWIW: the code that parses calibre json files is in https://github.com/koreader/koreader...n/metadata.lua but I think it has nothing to do with your issue.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by pazos

I'm out of ideas and I doubt it is related to the plugin we're discussing. Could you please paste a screenshot of the UI where you see all those authors with zero books?

I've attached 2 screenshots, I hope they help.

[pazos]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I've attached 2 screenshots, I hope they help.

Those are empty folders in the file manager. They have nothing to do with calibre metadata.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by pazos

Those are empty folders in the file manager. They have nothing to do with calibre metadata.

Thanks, so the screenshots DID help. I can now go ahead and delete those folders with impunity. Much obliged