Problem with Save to disc

[Rida]

Where does the "Save to disc" thing get its author names from to name the folders it creates?

One book goes in
Goscinny, Renderzo, Albert
the other in
Goscinny, René & Uderzo, Albert

even though they both have

Author: René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo
Author sort: Goscinny, René & Uderzo, Albert

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? Thanks.

[theducks]

Where are you looking?
STD is for exporting to OTHER devices or media.

AFAIK There is only one template active, unlike Save to Device (STD), where each CONNECTED device family can have a different template.

[Rida]

Thank you very much for replying, theducks.

Originally Posted by theducks

Where are you looking?

I'm looking in calibre Preferences>Saving books to disc (to check that the Save template is correct). I haven't changed it, so it looks like this, as expected:


I'm looking in calibre's Edit metadata window for each of the two books. They both say "Goscinny, René & Uderzo, Albert" in the Author sort box:




I'm looking in Windows File Explorer at the folders I saved to disc:

Originally Posted by theducks

STD is for exporting to OTHER devices or media.

I'm not sure that's entirely true, is it?

I had some books that I didn't want in calibre anymore. I might put them back later but for now I just wanted to delete them entirely from calibre.

So I saved them to disc on my own device in a folder (called Deleted from calibre) separate from the calibre library folder. Then I deleted the books from calibre.

Even if, say, I wanted to give a copy of a book to someone else, surely I can save that book to a folder on my own device before I put it on a USB drive or whatever?

So I don't think STD is ONLY for exporting to OTHER devices or media, and anyway, it's pretty clear that something is going wrong, right?

Originally Posted by theducks

AFAIK There is only one template active, unlike Save to Device (STD), where each CONNECTED device family can have a different template.

I don't really understand this and, given the above, I don't think it's relevant here. I'll happily answer this bit if you think it's necessary.

---
It looks clear that calibre has for some reason squashed

Goscinny, René & Uderzo, Albert
into
Goscinny, Renderzo, Albert

for one of the books, hence my original post.

It's an oddity, so I wondered:

am I doing something wrong or
is calibre doing something wrong or
is something 'corrupted' about one of the files or within calibre?

---
I'm only showing you two books, but in fact there are 15 books. Fourteen of them happily go into the
"Goscinny, René & Uderzo, Albert" folder

The other rogue book goes into the
"Goscinny, Renderzo, Albert" folder.

---
PS.
In order to write this reply, I had to re-add the books to calibre. I did wonder if that process would somehow fix the problem - which would have annoyed me because it would make it look like there was never a problem in the first place, when in fact (at least to me at this point) there is clearly some sort of glitch that is not visible until after I have saved the books to disc. This raises the question "which other books in my library have the same problem?"

But re-adding the books, and then re-saving them to disc produces the same result.

I'll be very grateful if you or anyone else can identify what's happening and let me know your findings.

I feel fairly confident that kovidgoyal would find this interesting and would probably be able to enlighten me pretty quickly. Is it possible to tag our hero [my goodness, I love calibre - and I am a Patreon donor] in a post and, even if it is, would that be rude?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Rida

---
It looks clear that calibre has for some reason squashed

That is almost definitely what calibre is doing.

Goscinny, René & Uderzo, Albert
into
Goscinny, Renderzo, Albert

for one of the books, hence my original post.

It's an oddity, so I wondered:

am I doing something wrong or
is calibre doing something wrong or
is something 'corrupted' about one of the files or within calibre?

---
I'm only showing you two books, but in fact there are 15 books. Fourteen of them happily go into the
"Goscinny, René & Uderzo, Albert" folder

The other rogue book goes into the
"Goscinny, Renderzo, Albert" folder.

The maximum path length for a file in Windows is 255 characters. If the generated path exceeds this, calibre will shorten parts of the path. And taking characters out of the middle of one of the directory names is how it normally happens.

For the second book in your screenshots, I think the full title is "Wie Obelix als kleines Kind in den Zaubertrank geplumpst ist" (found on Wikipedia after searching for the bit I could see). And prepend "German Asterix - ". Which makes your title "German Asterix - Wie Obelix als kleines Kind in den Zaubertrank geplumpst ist". The template would generate:

Goscinny, René & Uderzo, Albert/German Asterix - Wie Obelix als kleines Kind in den Zaubertrank geplumpst ist/German Asterix - Wie Obelix als kleines Kind in den Zaubertrank geplumpst ist - René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo.epub

That is 224 characters long. How long is the path name for the directory you are saving this to? If you are saving to the root directory of a drive, it should work, but, anything else might need the path shortened.

If your save-to-disk options only save the book (not the cover and OPF), you could shorten the generated path by removing the title as a separate directory. That would mean the template would be:

{author_sort}/{title} - {authors}

And as an aside, it has been a long time since I read an Asterix story. I had to translate the title to English as I didn't remember one that long. And I don't recognise it. Or the covers I found. I'll have to check my library to see if I do have it.

[BetterRed]

Ninja'd


@Rida - couple of things to check

• have a look in Manage Authors for anomalies, I would anticipate you should see two authors
  
  René Goscinny with Sort Name Goscinny, René
  Albert Uderzo with Sort Name Uderzo, Albert
  
  
• have a look at where the Asterisk books are stored, press 'O' to open a Book folder. I would anticipate they'd all be stored in book title folders within the "Rene Goscinny" author folder (note the loss of the acute diacritic on the second 'e').

Maybe you have run up against a very obscure problem with path lengths. Create a fresh library at the root of a drive, then copy the Asterisk books to it using Calibre's Copy to library tool… by default it's in the book list context menu. Then try saving the Asterisk books to disk from it.

BR

[ownedbycats]

I had a similar issue with filepath limitation truncating characters in the middle of the path. I resolved it by using {author_sort:sublist(0,1,&)} to list only the first author.

[Rida]

Thank you everyone for replying; I really appreciate it.

Originally Posted by davidfor

That is almost definitely what calibre is doing.


The maximum path length for a file in Windows is 255 characters. If the generated path exceeds this, calibre will shorten parts of the path. And taking characters out of the middle of one of the directory names is how it normally happens.

As you say, davidfor, it's got to be hitting the maximum path length for a file in Windows.

Perhaps interestingly, the whole length of the truncated version is 263 characters. I'm not sure how Windows achieved that, but still.

Anyway, I don't want to spend longer on this, so I've just created a folder called STD on my root directory. That solves the problem. [Unfortunately, STD stands for sexually transmitted disease, doesn't it. So anyone looking at my PC may get the wrong idea - and I'll probably also be getting weird Faceook ads now. If you lot do too, blame me!]

I do think that calibre should avoid truncating the folder names if possible, because it puts the same author in different folders, which could be problematical.

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I had a similar issue with filepath limitation truncating characters in the middle of the path. I resolved it by using {author_sort:sublist(0,1,&)} to list only the first author.

Your link, ownedbycats, leads to this comment:

Originally Posted by davidfor

The path creation is done by calibre. The drivers supply a maximum path length and calibre works something out in that. It does tend to shorten the actual file name more than the rest of the path, but, I have seen this myself. I use a couple of different libraries, and put the library name first. Occasionally the library name gets shortened. From a quick look at the code, all parts of the path can be shortened, but the longer the part, the more will be taken from it. Hence the file name part will usually be changed the most.

In my case, the file name is the longest part, so I believe this should have been shortened instead of the authors being mangled in the file path and creating separate authors for the same author. So I believe this is a bug. I'd be more than willing to help get to the root of this, kovidgoyal, if you happen to be reading this.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Maybe you have run up against a very obscure problem with path lengths.

I think so, BR.

Originally Posted by davidfor

And as an aside, it has been a long time since I read an Asterix story. I had to translate the title to English as I didn't remember one that long. And I don't recognise it. Or the covers I found. I'll have to check my library to see if I do have it.

It's not part of the main Asterix series, davidfor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...es#In_addition

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

In 1989 a final illustrated story appeared. The story was by Goscinny (in 1965) with new, original art by Uderzo. It was 32 pages and appeared in the larger format used for the regular albums. It was the only one that was published in English:

1989 – Comment Obelix est tombé dans la marmite du druide quand il était petit (How Obelix Fell into the Magic Potion When he was a Little Boy)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Ob...s_a_Little_Boy

I love Asterix, davidfor, and Father Christmas brought my son a real-life copy so I guess he has the same taste as me - he must be a good bloke!

Originally Posted by BetterRed

have a look at where the Asterisk books are stored,

Asterisk? Burn the heathen! Just kidding, BR. Maybe have a look here; they seem to be available to read online: https://www.omgbeaupeep.com/comics/Asterix/

Thanks again, everyone.

[BetterRed]

Autocorrect insists it's Asterisk, it must be write it has autifictional tellimess

STD is also Send To Device round here, elsewhere its Seize The Day.

BR

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Autocorrect insists it's Asterisk, it must be write it has autifictional tellimess

STD is also Send To Device round here, elsewhere its Seize The Day.

BR

STD is not something you want to get. It's been that way long before any of us were born.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Rida

In my case, the file name is the longest part, so I believe this should have been shortened instead of the authors being mangled in the file path and creating separate authors for the same author. So I believe this is a bug. I'd be more than willing to help get to the root of this, kovidgoyal, if you happen to be reading this.

Yeah, mine got truncated mid-path too.