Feature request: more help with extra authors and titles

[CvR]

Hi,

When I run Library Maintenance/Check Database on my book collection, I get a large number of extra authors and extra titles. All of them seem to have been at one time maintained by Calibre, but somehow got lost. Unfortunately, the only way to 'repair' this problem that Calibre offers is to delete them, which is not exactly helpful.

I have found a rather cumbersome way to fix the extra authors by locating them one by one in the Calibre folder, moving them to a separate folder, and importing them again in Calibre. That may leave me with duplicates, which are also a pain to remove, but that's a separate subject, and at least they're in the database again.

However, repairing extra titles in the same way is simply too cumbersome to be practical. I have a few hundred of them. The error message doesn't specify the author, so would have to guess that, or I would need to search for a directory with the correct Calibre sequence number, or ...

The frustrating thing is that it seems to me that it wouldn't take much effort for Calibre to be much more helpful. Why can't it just add those extra authors and titles to the database again? Or at least why can't it just move the extra authors and titles to an external directory, so that they can be imported again?

One dirty trick I've considered is to clear the Trash, let Calibre delete the extra authors and titles, and then import them again from the Trash, perhaps after moving to a non-Trash folder. It may work, but it doesn't seem to be a very safe way to solve this.

So, how realistic is my request for more help from Calibre? Am I missing a way to solve this with the current program?

Thanks in advance for any hints!

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by CvR

Am I missing a way to solve this with the current program?

@CvR - try creating a new library, then use the Copy to library (delete after copy) to move all the books in the book list to it (make sure you copy any custom columns)

Backup the new library.

The old library will only have the extra titles and extra authors, which you should be able to add to the new library with the Add Books one book per directory/subdirectory option.

Added : the only way I know of that will create extra authors, books and formats, is to add or edit the names of folders and files in the library by means other than calibre, or to add folder and files by means other than calibre.

I run Check library weekly, on the odd occasion I get an error it's always because of something I did or didn't do.

BR

[CvR]

@BetterRed Thanks for the reply. What you describe probably works, but it sounds quite dangerous and slow (I have a quite large collection). I was hoping that Calibre could just deal with the `orphan' authors and books by itself, rather than me doing it in such an indirect way. The information is there already, all Calibre has to do is do an import on the orphan directories, or move them to a new directory.

Regarding how I ended up with those orphans, well, real life happens. I don't normally mess around with the directories directly, but the book collection is many years old, and over the years Calibre has crashed (rarely!), my computer has hung while Calibre was running, file syncs have gone bad, and who knows what else has caused this. And then it took me a while to discover this database cleanup feature.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by CvR

@BetterRed Thanks for the reply. What you describe probably works, but it sounds quite dangerous and slow (I have a quite large collection).

What evidence do you have that it's dangerous. Many people have used the process I suggested to get out of same the situation as you have.

How big is the 'quite large' collection. I have a library of 120,000 books, I would have no hesitation to run copy with delete to a new library should it ever become necessary to do so. Of course I would have a backup of the current (warts and all) library before doing do. And I wouldn't expect it to be very quick.

Originally Posted by CvR

I was hoping that Calibre could just deal with the `orphan' authors and books by itself, rather than me doing it in such an indirect way. The information is there already, all Calibre has to do is do an import on the orphan directories, or move them to a new directory.

If it was as easy as you seem to think it is, it probably would have been done from the get go.

You can make 'formal' request for enhancement at ==>> >>Bugs : calibre

Or, if you were interested in making the changes yourself you could start a thread in the Development subforum, with the objective of submitting a patch.

BR

[theducks]

@CVR
If it is slow*, it is because of your system configuration, drive speed choice. Flash is many times lower than rotating magnetic.
Many of us have an 'Intake' Library, where we clan and massage before moving (using the same process) to the 'Main' library.
For me, on older HW, 20 books takes less than 30 seconds to do using Calibres 'Copy To Library" function. Loss is almost impossible as Calibre performs a 'Transaction' copy, the does the Delete only if the copy succeeds.

* My definition of slow is many hours

[Geremia]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

You can make 'formal' request for enhancement at ==>> >>Bugs : calibre

https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1824058