Aura H2O Calibre not updating the titles correctly, plus how to remove "to download" copies

[Boneist]

Hi,

Firstly, I'm trying to get the books in my H2O to show the titles as they are in Calibre, but I'm not having much luck. I have applied the fix from this post to remove the subtitles, but there are still books where the title in the database doesn't match the title I have set in Calibre.

I have updated the metadata both via Calibre and the Kobo Utilities plugin (the latter of which reported 0 books updated) and ejected and reloaded the ereader, but no joy.

Does anyone know why the update of the title isn't working? I'm on Calibre v2.84 (64 bit) and my H2O is at 4.3.8945. It appears to be affecting both downloaded straight from Kobo and side-loaded books (such as the 3 kindle books I converted to epubs this evening *{:-/ )


Secondly, I have an issue where I have two entries for lots of books, one is a copy on the device (with the title, series, etc from Calibre) the other is marked as "Download" (with the title, series, etc from Kobo itself). I suspect most of these are ones I downloaded on my old Sony PRS-T1 that were subsequently side-loaded into my H2O when I first started using it.

Is there a tried and tested method to combine these database entries, or am I doomed to either download the books manually, delete the old copy and then match the books in Calibre, or have to faff around doing potentially complicated updates/deletes directly in the database? (Last time I looked at this, I wasn't sure which rows would need to be amended, and IIRC there were differences between different books, so the same fix wouldn't work across all of them).

Thanks

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Boneist

Firstly, I'm trying to get the books in my H2O to show the titles as they are in Calibre, but I'm not having much luck. I have applied the fix from this post to remove the subtitles, but there are still books where the title in the database doesn't match the title I have set in Calibre.

That should work, but I added the subtitle as one of the fields that can be set from the the Kobo Utilities plugin.

I have updated the metadata both via Calibre and the Kobo Utilities plugin (the latter of which reported 0 books updated) and ejected and reloaded the ereader, but no joy.

Does anyone know why the update of the title isn't working? I'm on Calibre v2.84 (64 bit) and my H2O is at 4.3.8945. It appears to be affecting both downloaded straight from Kobo and side-loaded books (such as the 3 kindle books I converted to epubs this evening *{:-/ )

Again, this should work. If the result says that no books were updated, then it is because the plugin didn't find any changes to make. During the update it compare those in the device database with what is in the calibre library and only changes what is different.

Of course, there could be a bug. If it isn't working, run calibre in debug mode, select a couple of books to update that won't update and then run the metadata update. Then post calibre debug log for me to look at.

One thing, if changes are made, sometimes the device won't reflect them until the database is reread. The only way to force this is to restart the device. And, if the database is corrupt, then anything the plugin does to make changes will fail, but you should see an error message.

Secondly, I have an issue where I have two entries for lots of books, one is a copy on the device (with the title, series, etc from Calibre) the other is marked as "Download" (with the title, series, etc from Kobo itself). I suspect most of these are ones I downloaded on my old Sony PRS-T1 that were subsequently side-loaded into my H2O when I first started using it.

Is there a tried and tested method to combine these database entries, or am I doomed to either download the books manually, delete the old copy and then match the books in Calibre, or have to faff around doing potentially complicated updates/deletes directly in the database? (Last time I looked at this, I wasn't sure which rows would need to be amended, and IIRC there were differences between different books, so the same fix wouldn't work across all of them).

The books with "Download" are from the Kobo server. They are books you have bought from the Kobo store and not downloaded to the device. Or, in this case, are books you bought from the Sony shop and were migrated to Kobo when Sony closed down their store. There are three ways to handle them: download them, ignore them and delete them.

If you download them, they will be on the device and you can read them. They will be kepubs rather than epubs. The utilities plugin can change the metadata for these but there is an option that need to be chosen.

If you delete them, they are removed from the account proper and show in the "Archived" section of the library on the Kobo store. You have to do this one at a time on the device.

For all options, you are deciding if you want to read a sideloaded version of the book or that from Kobo. Personally, I read the downloaded version unless the formatting has to many problems. Then I fix it in the epub, sideload and read that. Having both versions on the device doesn't worry me.

An alternative is to use a separate Kobo account for the device. Have one to buy books, download to the PC and sideload. The other is on the device and you don't buy any books with it. Then, you won't see any books downloaded to the device at all.

[GeoffR]

I don't know what is happening with changing the book title, but the fact that Calibre says "0 books updated" could mean that the book you are changing in Calibre is not linked to the book on the device that you think it is. Try searching the device for the new title, you might see that there is another book.

For the undownloaded books, you can also hide them from the library list by selecting Show: Downloaded at the top left in the library, but the problem is that they still show up in search results. I just remove all of mine completely, either from the device (long press on book > remove > remove from my books) or else via the website library (three dots > move to archive) and then sync. If I ever want them back again, I can move them from the archive to the library via the website.

[Boneist]

Thanks for the advice regarding the books marked as "Download" - I'm perfectly happy reading books loaded straight from Kobo (although I never buy them through the ereader; it's easier to do that on my phone!), so I've bitten the bullet and have gone through over 30 pages worth of books and tapped on the download. I hope Calibre will give me an easy way to spot which copy I can delete!

As for the other issue, erm - I don't know why Calibre didn't update the cached metadata, but it turns out I wasn't using the KoboUtilities correctly - I hadn't realised that I needed to select the books first! D'oh!

Once I selected all books and clicked update, it reported that all but 4 had been updated. A definite PEBCAK issue there, I think! *{;-)

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Boneist

Thanks for the advice regarding the books marked as "Download" - I'm perfectly happy reading books loaded straight from Kobo (although I never buy them through the ereader; it's easier to do that on my phone!), so I've bitten the bullet and have gone through over 30 pages worth of books and tapped on the download.

I usually buy from Kobo via the web store. I have bought on the device but mainly as an experiment to see what it was like.

And I'm not sure if I should tell you now, but if you tap the three dots in the grey area at the top of the list, the menu has a "Download all" option.

I hope Calibre will give me an easy way to spot which copy I can delete!

If you have downloaded and sideloaded a book, calibre will show that you have two copies on the device when you connect. Selecting these and clicking the delete button and then the on device button, will show a list of the books. Uncheck the version you want to keep on the device.

As for the other issue, erm - I don't know why Calibre didn't update the cached metadata, but it turns out I wasn't using the KoboUtilities correctly - I hadn't realised that I needed to select the books first! D'oh!

Once I selected all books and clicked update, it reported that all but 4 had been updated. A definite PEBCAK issue there, I think! *{;-)

Been there, done that, muttered something under my breath when I realised why it didn't work

[Boneist]

Originally Posted by davidfor

And I'm not sure if I should tell you now, but if you tap the three dots in the grey area at the top of the list, the menu has a "Download all" option.

That made me laugh, albeit slightly hysterically, for about 5 minutes straight! Another PEBCAK issue ...

If you have downloaded and sideloaded a book, calibre will show that you have two copies on the device when you connect. Selecting these and clicking the delete button and then the on device button, will show a list of the books. Uncheck the version you want to keep on the device.

Yeah, I found that bit easy enough to do - some of the books had auto-matched to the library, which was nice, and the rest I had to do manually. It also threw up some books that I thought I had previously removed from my Kobo library but were actually still present. Anyway, everything now matches, except for the book count on the new home page on my H2O; it's showing 4 more books than are actually present (looking in the settings shows the right number of downloaded + side loaded books, and no previews). I'll bug Kobo about that directly via Twitter, though.

Been there, done that, muttered something under my breath when I realised why it didn't work

I'm glad it's not just me; I think I had previously worked that out, but somehow my mind had blanked it out completely! Ah well, live and learn!