Can't add read date column name to sync

[Purple Lady]

Is it correct behavior to not allow me to add the read date column name by typing it in? I don't see a way to do that, so I'm syncing first. With almost 1,000 books it takes a few minutes to sync so I'd rather just type the name in. Or did I miss something?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Is it correct behavior to not allow me to add the read date column name by typing it in? I don't see a way to do that, so I'm syncing first. With almost 1,000 books it takes a few minutes to sync so I'd rather just type the name in. Or did I miss something?

A long time back you could type in the names. That went away when the pick-and-choose interface was added. Thus yes, you must sync once before you can set the read date. If this is a new CC install then you can turn off auto-scan to make this first sync go a lot faster.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

A long time back you could type in the names. That went away when the pick-and-choose interface was added. Thus yes, you must sync once before you can set the read date. If this is a new CC install then you can turn off auto-scan to make this first sync go a lot faster.

This wasn't a new install and I have auto-scan off. I added two new columns to Calibre so it ended up doing two syncs and two db upgrades(I think). The first sync and db upgrade was for the new column that wasn't the read date. After that I could choose the date read column which I think triggered a new sync and it did a db upgrade.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

This wasn't a new install and I have auto-scan off. I added two new columns to Calibre so it ended up doing two syncs and two db upgrades(I think). The first sync and db upgrade was for the new column that wasn't the read date. After that I could choose the date read column which I think triggered a new sync and it did a db upgrade.

It didn't need to do another sync unless the column definitions changed between the two.

As for the DB upgrade, it might look like it is doing it twice but in fact it simply restarts it. If you wait for the first to finish then it really does do it twice. If you make another change while the upgrade is running then it redoes what has already been upgraded and then does one time whatever is left.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

It didn't need to do another sync unless the column definitions changed between the two.

As for the DB upgrade, it might look like it is doing it twice but in fact it simply restarts it. If you wait for the first to finish then it really does do it twice. If you make another change while the upgrade is running then it redoes what has already been upgraded and then does one time whatever is left.

The columns were not changed between the two. I did a wireless connection and it did a sync for all books because of the new columns. I disconnected and then choose the read date column and connected wirelessly again. I remember seeing metadata sent for the books again and a db upgrade.

It took five minutes this morning between the time of my auto connect at 8:00 am and when the news articles were sent. I saw this from the auto connect log in settings. Something weird is going on with the regular debug log - the first entry is from 8:02 this morning:
2015-05-29 08:02:01.209: Command SendBooklists: queued #158 of 981, title=Project Nemesis, series sort=Kaiju

I was sleeping, so it wasn't me who deleted the log!

[chaley]

First, the log. CC won't let the log grow to more than 1/2 MB. When it gets to that size it truncates it back to 1/4MB. Clearly the beginning of the connection was inside the 250KB that was thrown away. Perhaps I should truncate in 1/4 MB increments instead of 1/2 MB.

What is left in the log makes it very clear that calibre thought it needed to send metadata for every book. I don't know why. Did you modify a custom column? In any event, the important question is "did it transfer all metadata again on the next connect?" If so, and if nothing was changed, then I might yet again have a problem in calibre's cache management.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

First, the log. CC won't let the log grow to more than 1/2 MB. When it gets to that size it truncates it back to 1/4MB. Clearly the beginning of the connection was inside the 250KB that was thrown away. Perhaps I should truncate in 1/4 MB increments instead of 1/2 MB.

What is left in the log makes it very clear that calibre thought it needed to send metadata for every book. I don't know why. Did you modify a custom column? In any event, the important question is "did it transfer all metadata again on the next connect?" If so, and if nothing was changed, then I might yet again have a problem in calibre's cache management.

I think I may know why the metadata was being sent again. If I connect to Calibre on my laptop and then connect to the pc again, will that trigger the metadata to be sent again? I just connected to my laptop again and it sent metadata.

The Calibre library on my laptop is a copy of the one on my pc, and I just looked at the files - the opf file has the date of when I copied it so it's different than the pc. I'm on vacation without my tech support - I'll have to figure out how to copy the library from dropbox in win 7 without changing the dates.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I think I may know why the metadata was being sent again. If I connect to Calibre on my laptop and then connect to the pc again, will that trigger the metadata to be sent again? I just connected to my laptop again and it sent metadata.

This is a very complicated issue.

There are two "metadata sends", one from CC to calibre and one from calibre to CC. The first one is necessary to fill calibre's CC metadata cache, and should happen only once when using a single calibre computer. The second sends changed metadata from calibre to CC, and happens whenever the last modified date for a book in calibre's database disagrees with the date CC has.

Connecting CC to computer A then connecting to computer B can force one of the first sends, CC to calibre, because the cache on the computer B would not have been updated when connecting to computer A. As for the second send type, if we assume the following steps:

1. Ensure that the calibre libraries on machines A and B are copies of each other.
2. Connect CC to machine A and let it settle. Disconnect.
3. Connect CC to machine B and let it settle. Disconnect. At this point, connecting CC to either machine should not cause a metadata send unless you change something in calibre.
4. Change something in calibre on machine A, such as adding a custom column.
5. Connect CC to machine A. It will send all metadata from calibre to CC.
6. Disconnect CC and shut down calibre.
7. Copy the calibre library to machine B.
8. Connect CC to machine B. CC will send its metadata to calibre because the cache on machine B doesn't know about the work on machine A.
9. Reconnect to machine A without having changed anything in calibre. There should be no metadata send in either direction.
10. Reconnect to machine B without having changed anything in calibre. There should be no metadata send in either direction.

The Calibre library on my laptop is a copy of the one on my pc, and I just looked at the files - the opf file has the date of when I copied it so it's different than the pc. I'm on vacation without my tech support - I'll have to figure out how to copy the library from dropbox in win 7 without changing the dates.

CC doesn't care about file times unless you are using its sync-books feature. If you are syncing changed books then changing mod times could force all sorts of data exchange.

As for copying and keeping the dates, a quality sync program will do that. I use Free File Sync, but there are several others including the DOS command "xcopy".

And FWIW: I leave my library in dropbox and let calibre use it there. I of course must be careful of the usual suspects, not to access it on two computers and to wait for any syncing to complete before firing up calibre. I also have my calibre config folder in dropbox so I have the same settings and plugins on all my computers running calibre. This second requires a bit of DOS scripting to set environment variables.