Whispersync not working with Calibre ebooks

[Governa]

So I’ve just received my Kindle Paperwhite and I’m not having much success getting Calibre ebooks to Whispersync between the Kindle and other devices running the Kindle app. The ebooks are set up as follows:

- I’ve converted all ebooks from EPUB to MOBI.
- The Personal Doc tag is set to [EBOK]
- “Enable sharing of ebook content via Facebook, etc.” is disabled
- I've used the Quality Check plugin to fix the ASIN
- I tried both Send To Kindle and my kindle email

Some notes that might be relevant: Whispersync is working fine for ebooks bought on Amazon and the Calibre ebooks show as Personal docs on the Kindle.

What am I missing?

[netromo]

Whispersync only works with books bought on Amazon. To avoid books showing up as personal docs convert them to AZW3 instead of Mobi. AZW3 is a newer version of Mobi.

[johnoz123]

This is what works for me:

-In Calibre I convert my epubs to mobi using default settings
-I then email or use Send to Kindle to send the mobi file to my Amazon account.

I can then open the book/document on my Kindle PW2 and any of my linked mobile devices using the Kindle app and it syncs to 'furthest page read'.

For me Whispersync doesn't work on any USB loaded -non Amazon books or document

John

[Governa]

Originally Posted by netromo

Whispersync only works with books bought on Amazon. To avoid books showing up as personal docs convert them to AZW3 instead of Mobi. AZW3 is a newer version of Mobi.

That's not entirely true as I've seen it done before. I know it will definitely not work if I convert my MOBI files to AZW3. Isn't AZW3 actually EPUB with Amazon DRM and a Palm database for Kindle Fire?

[Governa]

Originally Posted by johnoz123

This is what works for me:

-In Calibre I convert my epubs to mobi using default settings
-I then email or use Send to Kindle to send the mobi file to my Amazon account.

Thanks John. That's basically what I've been doing without success. I must be missing something.

[copyrite]

I convert in Calibre, then use Send to Kindle for PC making sure to check the Save to Amazon Cloud Drive so it'll synch between devices.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by netromo

Whispersync only works with books bought on Amazon. To avoid books showing up as personal docs convert them to AZW3 instead of Mobi. AZW3 is a newer version of Mobi.

WhisperSync is dependent on the book being in Amazon's records. Send-to-Kindle exists in order to have PDOCs sync across devices.

AZW3 has literally nothing to do with the Personal banner -- that is controlled by the presence or absence of an exth 113 (mobi-asin) and/or exth 501 (cdetype) == "EBOK" metadata field.

Originally Posted by Governa

That's not entirely true as I've seen it done before. I know it will definitely not work if I convert my MOBI files to AZW3. Isn't AZW3 actually EPUB with Amazon DRM and a Palm database for Kindle Fire?

AZW3 is the next-generation form of the mobipocket Palm-database-wrapper format.
It is used by all recent Kindle devices/apps and is similar to EPUB but with a binary Palm database wrapper instead of a standard ZIP compression wrapper.

DRM is a separate component. It applies to both MOBI and AZW3.

[Governa]

Originally Posted by copyrite

I convert in Calibre, then use Send to Kindle for PC making sure to check the Save to Amazon Cloud Drive so it'll synch between devices.

Been doing that too, no success. It's quite puzzling.

[barryem]

I send my mobi books via email to one of my Kindle devices to the address registered in Manage Your Kindle for that device. I send it from my email address that I've told Amazon is an approved address from which to send books. I then wait a while, usually 10 minutes but it sometimes takes an hour or more, for Amazon to make the book available under Docs.

Once the book is available I download it to all the devices on which I want to read it. When I do that it always syncs just fine.

If I leave out any of those steps it usually doesn't work and it doesn't always tell me it's not going to work.

Barry

[Atunah]

I always use send to kindle PC straight from my calibre library. I tag the books in calibre, make sure I have a cover etc, convert to mobi, then I open folder, right click and send to kindle.
They always sync perfectly fine for me, just like a book coming straight from the Amazon store.

I tested it just now just to make sure something didn't change and it worked Opened a doc on my Fire6 went forward in the book, went to my PW and hit sync to further read. Voila. Worked like a charm.

So yeah, its kind of puzzling if it doesn't work. Something else going on there.

[johnoz123]

Originally Posted by Governa

Thanks John. That's basically what I've been doing without success. I must be missing something.

Sometimes I've had to re get the metadata in Calibre to ensure I have an Amazon ISBN (not sure this is entirely needed, but it seems to work for me) . Then I reconvert the book mobi to mobi. This ALWAYS works if I have a problem. BUT, before you resend your newly converted book/doc to Amazon you must delete all the OLD tries on the PW, on the iPhone, iPad and on your Amazon account. Sometimes (not often) it takes a few goes to start syncing. By that I mean sometimes I open the book/doc on the PW and then on my iPhone and it doesn't sync immediately and so I move pages a few times and then it starts Technology! -- Good luck!

[copyrite]

When you use Send to Kindle, and then go to whatever they call the Manage Your Kindle page now, is it listed in "Your Content"?

[cvkemp]

I just calibre send to my kindles email address this places it in my amazon cloud then it is send to my android app and I can also download it to my iphone kindle app and they sync my reading position use fine.

[Governa]

OK so I think I may have figured it out.

I noticed that if I kept reading on my iPhone and then moved on to the Paperwhite I could force the Paperwhite to sync by going to the menu and hitting "Sync to Furthest Page Read". It would then show me how far I had gone on my iPhone and would ask if I wanted to sync.

But if I then kept reading on the Paperwhite and got back again to the iPhone, then the iPhone would not sync to the furthest page no matter what I did. It was as if the iPhone didn't know the Paperwhite existed but the Paperwhite would acknowledge the progress I made on the iPhone.

I've tried deleting the Kindle app and reinstalling but nothing changed. I rebooted the iPhone and the Paperwhite, still no go.

So I tried something different, I went to Amazon's Manage Your Kindle page, looked for the iPhone under "Your Devices" and hit "deregister". Then deleted the app on the iPhone, reinstalled it, reregistered my device, downloaded a book and... voila! It asked me if I wanted to sync to the last viewed page on my Kindle.

So far so good but I'll test with a couple more books before claiming victory. Thank you all for your input.

[Governa]

UPDATE: I have downloaded a new set of ebooks and although Whispersync seems to be working fine between iPhone and iPad, it fails to work between them and the Paperwhite so I'm reseting it to factory settings.

Maybe the last firmware upgrade left some gremlins behind... we'll see if the reset solves it.