Dealing with Kindle ebooks in calibre

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

Removal of what? And when?

Deleting of USB-sideloaded books that have been marked as EBOKS, not PDOCS. This has been going on for several years and happens after a Kindle has been in the airplane mode for a while, then connected to wifi again.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ku11aa

Hi. I had the problem that book covers were dissappearing when downloading to my computer, could use calibre to get them though.
But they were blank in the Kfire. Made it hader to choose book all blank covers.
Read here that the wifi is a problem if on.
Deleted the books in Kfire,redownloaded and closed down wifi.
Now i get to keep the covers…
Yes they do still dissapear if i forget to close down wifi.
Tried that recently not intended.
Greetings

Please don't call your tablet a Kindle Fire. Amazon originally used the name Kindle Fire and it caused no end of confusion with eInk Kindles. The tablets Amazon sells are called Fire. Thanks.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

Removal of what? And when?

This is an issue that has been discussed pretty much to death.

The prequisite is if you have an Amazon format ebook with an EBOK cdetype, an ASIN that matches an existing Amazon ebook and a rather long (no exact length known) time not connecting to Amazon with your Kindle ereader.

When you connect, your ereader content will be scanned and books that are not present in your Amazon content library will be removed from your Kindle's library. This does not affect PDOC (personal document) or EBSP (sample book) cdetypes.

Currently, the only way to create a PDOC azw3 on calibre is to create a joint mobi/azw3 file with the PDOC type and then split it. I find it easier to use a utility to change the cdetype for the azw3 files.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Currently, the only way to create a PDOC azw3 on calibre is to create a joint mobi/azw3 file with the PDOC type and then split it.

IIRC, converting to KFX now allows you the option of setting those files as PDOC as well.

Originally Posted by DNSB

I find it easier to use a utility to change the cdetype for the azw3 files.

What utility do you use to set the cdetype to PDOC?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

IIRC, converting to KFX now allows you the option of setting those files as PDOC as well.

Correct.

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

What utility do you use to set the cdetype to PDOC?

I use a python script called ebook_cdetype_to_pdoc to take care of that task.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Currently, the only way to create a PDOC azw3 on calibre is to create a joint mobi/azw3 file with the PDOC type and then split it. I find it easier to use a utility to change the cdetype for the azw3 files.

Actually Kovid pointed out to me that this is not the case (and I verified).

All you have to is check the Enable sharing of book content via Facebook in the AZW3 output settings (it is actually same with MOBI settings but for the additional 'Tag' setting, which doesn't seem to have desired effect when I've tried it). This (counterintuitively to me) makes it a PDOC. (Of course it has been many years since Kindles could link to Facebook).

I intend to submit a PR to change the phrasing so it aligns with current Kindle terminology ('Mark as Personal Document (PDOC)' or some such). Kovid does not have a Kindle (or a recent one anyway), so does not want to unilaterally change it himself.

I don't generally side load to Kindles myself, so it has been hard to give it priority.

[lkmiller]

Thanks, Sirtel and David for the explanation. I must have missed or just ignored/forgot about previous discussion of it since I seldom sideload books to Kindles. If it ever happened to me, it was after I read it and never noticed.

[DNSB]

Random rambling...

I had the joy of discussing this with an Amazon customer service rep. Basically, the check was supposed to find books that no longer supposed to be on your Kindle such as returned KU loans and remove them when you hadn't connected to Amazon for an extended period. This does work.

Unfortunately, it also removes any other Amazon ebooks that are "not" supposed to be on your device where Amazon ebook is defined as having EBOK cdetype, valid Amazon ASIN and not present in your Amazon content library. So if you buy a book from Kobo, convert it in calibre and send it to your Kindle, all too often the metadata update will have fetched the ASIN and with calibre defaulting to using EBOK for the cdetype, you are now setup to run into the issue. All you need is airplane mode for an extended period and you can say goodbye to those books.

And thanks for @tomsem for pointing out that the sharing book content via Facebook sets the cdetype to PDOC. I've never used Facebook so never looked at what that setting did.