Author folder ending in full stop — Kobo Aura H2O

[seanos]

This might be a problem on other devices, but I’ve only encountered it on the H2O.

I’m adding a book by E. F. Benson. I think I’m using the default save template for the plugin (KoboTouch) which is…

{author_sort}/{title} - {authors}

Either Calibre or the plugin substitutes an underscore for the last (illegal) ‘.’ so the folder is created on the Kobo as…

Benson, E. F_

The Kobo then tells me that this book has Adobe DRM (which it doesn’t). If I manually load the book into a folder named “Benson E. F._” it opens fine, but I’m guessing it’s better to load through Calibre.

I’m making adjustments to this book, so I’d like the Kobo to know it’s been updated. It seems quite hard to get the Kobo to notice a manual replacement of the file without powering down. I’ve only had this reader a few days so I’m still learning its quirks.

So, could this be considered a bug? It’s hard to see what is magical about the sequence “F_” vs. “F._” but perhaps there is something else going on here in Calibre’s interaction with the Kobo’s db?

Nope, I’ve now tested again by removing all copies of the book and manually adding it to the “Benson E. F_” folder and I get the same DRM warning.

[pdurrant]

It sounds like it might be the space in the file name 'extension' when it's called Benson, E. F_

Try replacing the other . with _ or change the space to _

It does sound like a tweak to the file name sanitizing routine might be in order.

[davidfor]

There is something else going on here. I already have a few books with authors whose authors look like that. I use the same save template and have no problems with them. As a test, I created a dummy book with author "E. F. Benson". When I sent it, the directory was "Benson, E. F_". This opened with no problems.

Can you point me to the book you are having problems with? It might be something else in the title. Or, it could be something in the book. Also, what firmware version? My testing is with 3.16.0, but I don't believe there has been a change in this for a while.

As to replacing a copy of the book on a Kobo device, you shouldn't have to power down to see it. When you disconnect from the PC, the device checks all books to see if they have changed. If the file size does not match that in the internal database, the book is completely removed from the database and then processed as a new book. The KoboTouch driver cheats and updates the file size in the database when you resend a book. This means that if you are only tweaking the book, fixing spelling, styles and the like, you don't lose the reading status or bookmarks. But, it can be a problem if the structure of the book changes. That is if you rename internal files or change the ToC. The book will usually open, but the reading position might not be remembered and the ToC probably won't work.

If you changed the cover when you resend the book, that might not get refreshed unless you power off. The device caches the covers for a few books in memory. If the cover is in the cache when you resend the book, it won't update until you power off or enough other covers get loaded into the cache to push the wrong one out.

[theducks]

Calibre replaces punctuation that might confuse some filesystems

an ending dot is one of those if it lands in the wrong place, so it is always fixed

My device has no fancy bookshelf, just a simple (filtered) file browser-like selector. So I use:
{author_sort}/

{title}

or
{series}/

{series_index}-{title}-{authors}

[seanos]

Thanks for your replies…haven’t had a chance to look at this since.

The Kobo reports Software version 3.15.0.

I had been editing this book using Calibre but just realised that Sigil was available again and had made some changes using it, so I was testing if there was any difference. I don’t think that was the problem though as I’d previously struck this problem and manually changed the folder name. It does seem like the folder name is the key difference since the book loaded through Calibre has one folder name (and won't open) while the (exact) copy with the different folder name does open.

[Updating issue] I definitely had the Kobo not show me changes I had made. Does it cache the book or styles somewhere? I think I may have only changed some styles, but it didn’t show them when disconnected from the PC.

I’ll do some more proper testing tomorrow (Friday night here).

[seanos]

After a lot of fiddling about it looks like it was database corruption, though I’m not sure what caused it. I’ve now successfully removed all trace of the book and added it again using Calibre and all is well. For a while there I could delete the book but a database ghost entry kept coming back.

Hopefully the other odd behaviour—incredibly (sometimes infinitely) slow reaction to unplugging/plugging in—will also disappear now.

[davidfor]

If it was database corruption, you will probably continue having problems. Depending on exactly how bad it is, compressing the database can fix it. But, you might need to sign out on the device and let it rebuild the database from scratch.

[seanos]

Sorry I wasn’t very clear. That’s exactly what I did (signed out & recreated) since Kobo Utilities reported corruption and would not compress it. I also found a script (kobo-restore) which did a db dump but that couldn’t do anything either. Being a new device it was not a big deal.

[seanos]

This problem has resurfaced—I’m back to a supposedly DRM locked book.

Two things that are different since the db reset:

1. I reinstalled the nightmode mod
2. On plugging in to update the book, the reader didn’t appear as a USB device and it became completely unresponsive with a black screen. I had to reach for the paper clip.

I suppose no. 2 is what corrupted the db but I wonder if no. 1 could have contributed to the lock up. Looking at what it does, it doesn’t seem obvious how the mod could interact with a USB connection but maybe I have to investigate exactly what fmon does now. /.kobo/fmon/fmon.log.txt offers no clues.

[Edit: I had updated the book using Calibre just before this, but when I unplugged the version Kobo showed to me was not the one I had just supposedly updated.]