Send to Kindle won't send author name from metadata.

[GeniusJ]

Yeah, something is weird with these files. I sent your epub to my Kindle via email. It showed up with author Unknown and title gnLOjVGqBpxzCKQDTCdRGF.

The mobi did the same thing.

I tried re-converting them, same thing happened.

Amazon does not like something about these files.

[GeniusJ]

Now it's doing it to my own books, too. A book I sent yesterday has this weird corruption when I send it again. Maybe it's on their end?

[Georgie W]

Originally Posted by jhowell

The situation is complicated. Calibre can alter the metadata in books being emailed and it is unclear exactly how Amazon processes them.

My best suggestion is to look at the sent folder in your email account and find examples of books that worked and didn’t. Then look at the emails themselves for things like subject or attachment file name that may be relevant. Lastly open each EPUB attachment in the sent emails and check for differences in the OPF metadata.

Thanks for the suggestion—looking at that now. May need a couple of whiskies to make sense of that, but will update.

[Georgie W]

Originally Posted by GeniusJ

Now it's doing it to my own books, too. A book I sent yesterday has this weird corruption when I send it again. Maybe it's on their end?

I am weirdly consoled by the fact someone else is suffering too. Sorry & all that!

[GeniusJ]

A mobi file I sent via the Send to Kindle app uploaded just fine.

[Georgie W]

Originally Posted by GeniusJ

A mobi file I sent via the Send to Kindle app uploaded just fine.

Yeah, I can make it do that too, but I'll be annoyed if I have to send each book individually and make adjustments to author etc each time. Calibre has been so brilliant (as it is about nearly everything) in making the process seamless.

[GeniusJ]

Further troubleshooting:

Emailing a document from Calibre results in a corrupted title and author Unknown.

Emailing an epub from Gmail results in a book with the title "Title - Author" and author Unknown.

It worked fine yesterday. I'd love to know if anyone else other than Georgie and I are having this problem using the email "Send to Kindle" feature.

[GeniusJ]

An epub emailed from NetGalley has the correct title but the author is Unknown.

It's gotta be something on Amazon's end.

[CathyA]

Originally Posted by GeniusJ

Further troubleshooting:

Emailing a document from Calibre results in a corrupted title and author Unknown.

Emailing an epub from Gmail results in a book with the title "Title - Author" and author Unknown.

It worked fine yesterday. I'd love to know if anyone else other than Georgie and I are having this problem using the email "Send to Kindle" feature.

Yes, there seems to be a problem on the Amazon side. Here's what I did, using the epub version of the Trollope book Georgie posted.

1. Imported the epub into Calibre. Opened it with the editor and verified that these tags are in the opf file:
<dc:title>An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids</dc:title>
<dc:creator opf:role="aut" opf:file-as="Trollope, Anthony">Trollope, Anthony</dc:creator>

2. Emailed the epub to my Kindle. (I sent it via Calibre, but I have Calibre configured to use my regular gmail account, so there's no difference between my creating an email or letting Calibre do it; they both show up in my sent items.) I did not even bother to download the converted file because I can see in Amazon's Manage Your Content page that the author has been added to the title field and the actual author is unknown.

3. Used Calibre to convert the epub to mobi. Connected my Kindle to my Windows laptop with a USB cable and dropped the mobi file in the documents folder. This works fine. The author and title are correctly displayed on the Kindle. From this, I deduce that there's nothing wrong with the epub file and the latest Kindle firmware is still able to read mobi files created with the latest version of Calibre.

4. Emailed the mobi to my Kindle. The file is again displayed incorrectly on Amazon's page. This time I let it download to the Kindle and it also displays incorrectly there.

5. I then reconnected the Kindle to my laptop and grabbed the downloaded file, which is now named "An Unprotected Female at the Py - Trollope, Anthony_BOJ7RU62IZLA7MEUMIA3VI72QH2QHPJS.azw". I dropped this into Calibre and converted it back to epub and opened it in the editor. Now I see this in the opf file:
<dc:title>An Unprotected Female at the Py - Trollope, Anthony</dc:title>
<dc:creator opf:role="aut" opf:file-as="Trollope, Anthony BOJ7RU62IZLA7MEUMIA3VI72QH2QHPJS">Trollope, Anthony BOJ7RU62IZLA7MEUMIA3VI72QH2QHPJS</dc:creator>

Clearly the Amazon conversion process for both mobi and epub input files has recently started producing screwed up output. I don't have a tool on my laptop that can unpack the azw/mobi file that Amazon is generating for the Kindle, but if you wanted to investigate exactly what they're doing wrong, that would be the next step. Even if you figure it out, you can't fix it though, you somehow have to convince Amazon that they've made a software change on their servers that's causing an issue and then wait for them to fix it.

[jhowell]

Currently when I email an EPUB I am seeing the file name of the attachment as the title and Unknown as the author. It used to work better than that.

[GeniusJ]

Originally Posted by CathyA

Even if you figure it out, you can't fix it though, you somehow have to convince Amazon that they've made a software change on their servers that's causing an issue and then wait for them to fix it.

Fat chance of convincing them of anything.

Thank you for confirming that it's on their end, I appreciate it.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by GeniusJ

Emailing a document from Calibre results in a corrupted title and author Unknown.

Amazon appears to be using the file name of the attachment as the title of the book.

When you send via email using calibre it generates a random file name so that is what you see as the title.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by GeniusJ

Emailing an epub from Gmail results in a book with the title "Title - Author" and author Unknown.

In that case the file name you sent must have been "Title - Author.epub". That is how calibre names files normally.

[GeniusJ]

Both of those statements appear to be correct, jhowell.

[Georgie W]

Originally Posted by CathyA

Yes, there seems to be a problem on the Amazon side. Here's what I did, using the epub version of the Trollope book Georgie posted.

That's pretty comprehensive--thanks for the trouble you've taken. I will embark on chatting to AZ tomorrow when I feel stronger.

As a matter of etiquette, is it appropriate to signpost AZ to this thread so that they can see what has been done and that it's not a single user issue?