Problem transferring books

[smoke2002]

I am having problems with moving my books from Calibre to my SD card. This worked fine on 6-1-15 but after a software update yesterday (6-2-15), I cannot get any books to transfer to the SD card.


I connect to content server but when I long press to transfer it to the device it just gives me an error that the book cannot be saved to memory.


Not sure if it is an app/device problem or if I am just missing something.


Any help would be appreciated.

[chaley]

If by "software update" you mean Android was updated on your device then you probably have been bitten by the Android 4.4 (Kitkat) SD card changes. See our FAQ I upgraded to Android 4.4 (KitKat) or later and I can't connect anymore. Why? for more explanation and for what to do to fix it.

[smoke2002]

The process you linked to is what I did when I first set up CC on my device when I got it earlier this year as it already had KitKat 4.4. Everything has worked well since then transferring books to the card...until I tried this new book so I'm not sure what is wrong.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by smoke2002

The process you linked to is what I did when I first set up CC on my device when I got it earlier this year as it already had KitKat 4.4. Everything has worked well since then transferring books to the card...until I tried this new book so I'm not sure what is wrong.

What did the software upgrade do?

A CC debug log might help me know what is going on. Go to CC's Settings, scroll to tbe bottom, and choose Send a debug log. Please erase the MultiPie email address so that the message comes only to me.

[smoke2002]

I'm really not sure what all the update did. Sorry.

I will send the debug log ASAP.

Thanks

[chaley]

The debug log says that Android is refusing to create/modify the book file on the SD card. This implies strongly that the internal Android "user id" has changed somehow, taking away all the necessary SD card permissions. Unfortunately I have no information about why this happened. I know it can happen if the SD card is used in more than one Android device, but I see no evidence that this happened.

Neither the version of CC nor the version of Android changed.

Does the problem occur if you send a different book? Perhaps one that is already on the device?

I suspect that the only way to fix this is to reload the books onto the SD card. If you have enough space in main memory then you might be able to do this in CC itself by copying the books to main memory, deleting the folder Android/data/com.multipie.calibreandroid/ on the SD card, then rebooting your device. At this point CC will work fine. If all went well the Android/data/com.multipie.calibreandroid/ will come back and be writable, meaning you can copy the books back to the SD card. Unfortunately a few people have reported cases where things did not go well and the folder did not come back.

It could be faster and more certain to start over. How you do this depends on whether you have put your entire library on your device. The general process is shown below. If your entire library is on your device then you can skip steps 1-4 and just resend everything in steps 13-14.

1. Connect your device to calibre as a wireless device.
2. Search for ondevice:true.
3. Select all the search results, open bulk metadata edit (E), and add a unique tag to all the books that saves the fact that the book is on the device.
4. Switch to the device pane. If there are any books that are not "In Library" (the first column) then you need to decide what to do with them. You might add them to your library so you can send them again to CC.
5. On your device, backup CC's settings to somewhere on your device (Settings, go to near the bottom, Backup ...)
6. Uninstall CC.
7. Delete the folder Android/data/com.multipie.calibreandroid/ from the SD card if it isn't already gone.
8. Reboot the device
9. Reinstall CC. The SD card folder Android/data/com.multipie.calibreandroid/ should come back. If it did not then something more fundamental has happened to your SD card. You might need to reformat it.
10. Restore CC's settings from the backup made earlier.
11. In CC's settings, check that the storage folders are set to the SD card. If not, set them there. If this step fails then we in the same situation as above: Android is unhappy with the SD card.
12. Connect CC as a wireless device.
13. In calibre, search for the special tag you created above.
14. Select all the books and press Send to device.
15. Wait ...

[smoke2002]

Really not sure how any other changes might have been made to the tablet or id info. The only thing that I know happened is that there was a software update installed either Tuesday or Wednesday.

I have not tried it with a different book and will not be able to until I am home from work later today, but will definitely try that to see if it is just a problem with the one book or with all of them.

The card that is in the device is only used in the tablet and not any other device. I do have most of my library on the tablet so I will most likely have to start from scratch.

Thanks for all the info and help. I will let you know how things go after I get a chance to try your suggestions.

[smoke2002]

Just got home from work and started trying your suggestions.

I had enough memory on the tablet to be able to move the books there. I then deleted the folder Android/data/com.multipie.calibreandroid/ on the SD card and rebooted. After that, I re-created the folder and sent all the books back to the SD card.

I then started CC and connected to my Calibre library and tried to transfer the book that I had problems with. This time it copied to the SD card with no problems.

Thanks so much for your help. I really appreciate it.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by smoke2002

Thanks so much for your help. I really appreciate it.

You are very welcome. Glad you got it sorted.

I do wish we knew what went wrong. Another mystery of computing.