Missing Books in my VERY OLD Kobo Account

[salamanderjuice]

https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/library/archive

That should link to the archive of your account if you're logged in. Might have to change country/language but I don't think the Kobo store was open outside Canada in 2009/early 2010 either. First Kobo wasn't launched until May 2010.

All my purchases going back to 2011 are still there and are fine, even ones no longer for sale.

[Tarana]

Granted that I only go as far back as 2012 on Kobo, but all my purchases are listed in PROFILE: PURCHASES.

[tegelad]

I just went through this (the trek started mid-December 2023, and I just finished the "clean-up" work.

The only way (as folks have stated) is to have the 'email' showing you purchased it from Sony or Kobo (and they will only honor Kobo purchases).

What I found (180 books in total, BTW) that no longer showed up in the "archives" or in "purchases" (which is the other place to look per Kobo chat).

If you know the title and author and are entitled, you can still get it, but it is an easter egg hunt. For those, that were curious I easter egg hunted over 120 books.

If you have an old reader "or" you have a long-term Kobo device (e.g., I had a form), you might be able to find some of your old entitled books in caliber under "deleted" or "archived" with a 0-byte reference. With that, I found at least 20 ...

Now folks will say back-up, etc ... and I 100% agree with you. I thought I was okay until last summer when I had a massive power outage due to a Texas monsoon and lost both of my NAS heads due to a freak firmware bug "and" it would have survived the 1st failure if I was home to turn the kit down usually and the system didn't bounce twice.

I have family members looking at me like I am a freak because I took the time to rebuild the entire libraries (kindle and kobo) and reworked it (along with backing it up on two NAS's and three cloud providers

I wish/pray no one else has this happen to them, but if you do ... ping me I can share whatever I learned

[Quoth]

If a backup isn't off line, it's not a backup.

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by Quoth

If a backup isn't off line, it's not a backup.

I am so bold as to disagree. Backups can be on- and off-line, it all depends on your requirements and created backup setup.
For instance, you can have continuously running backups (for instance cloud based) and backups made on removeable external devices, which are not part of the computing device, hence can be switched off (=off line).

The most important fact is: DO make regularly backups and store their contents in a safe environment.

[Quoth]

Online is vulnerable to power cuts and malware. "Cloud" is outside your control. It's an off site copy, not a true backup and vulnerable to hijack copy, malware, privacy from service company or TLAs, and accessibility (internet connection).

It's slightly nitpicking, as it depends on what you mean by a backup. To me a backup isn't just the same as an online copy.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Online is vulnerable to power cuts and malware. "Cloud" is outside your control. It's an off site copy, not a true backup and vulnerable to hijack copy, malware, privacy from service company or TLAs, and accessibility (internet connection).

It's slightly nitpicking, as it depends on what you mean by a backup. To me a backup isn't just the same as an online copy.

A cloud copy is not necessarily just an online copy. It can be a local copy that gets synced to the cloud. So even if internet goes down or the cloud provider goes out of business, you'll still have your local copy.

IMO the best way to back up is to have both local and cloud backups. I make changes to my stuff so often that to keep an offsite copy somewhere else than my home is not viable - it would always be weeks or months out of date. The only offsite solution for me is the cloud. Nowhere it is said that you must rely solely on the cloud; you can always keep local backups as well. It's not an one or the other scenario.

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

IMO the best way to back up is to have both local and cloud backups.

True, that's what I do. I configured my system to make about every 15 minutes a backup to the Cloud of every changed file since the last backup. In this manner I can loose only 15 minutes of work. At regularly intervals I make twice a full image-backup, on 2 different local backup-devices as 1 backup is no backup (the backup device can fail too)

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

A cloud copy is not necessarily just an online copy. It can be a local copy that gets synced to the cloud. So even if internet goes down or the cloud provider goes out of business, you'll still have your local copy.

IMO the best way to back up is to have both local and cloud backups.
…
It's not an one or the other scenario.

Originally Posted by DrChiper

…
At regularly intervals I make twice a full image-backup, on 2 different local backup-devices as 1 backup is no backup (the backup device can fail too)

All true.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DrChiper

True, that's what I do. I configured my system to make about every 15 minutes a backup to the Cloud of every changed file since the last backup. In this manner I can loose only 15 minutes of work. At regularly intervals I make twice a full image-backup, on 2 different local backup-devices as 1 backup is no backup (the backup device can fail too)

Yep. I don't have an automatic backup method, because Calibre (where I manage and edit my ebooks) doesn't like active syncing while it's open. I just run FreeFileSync on my calibre library after I've finished an editing session, and then I run Dropbox where I keep my cloud backup. It's all pretty fast anyway. For any other stuff that doesn't include Calibre, I also run Dropbox after I've finished work. And at regular intervals I make backups to three external drives. All this works well enough for me.

I've tried other cloud providers in the past, but IMO Dropbox is best. Others are either slower, more prone to conflicts and corruption, or both. Some have already gone out of business since I used them. I never have Dropbox running in the background, though, because of Calibre. I just switch it on and off as needed.

[slm]

I know there is a largish portion of this forum that believe that running any sync program while Calibre is open is dangerous.

For what it may be worth: I run Calibre 24/7 and Dropbox 24/7. I never do anything with the Drobox files copied from Calibre.

And I've never had a problem. I'm reasonable sure that Drobox does not attempt to copy open files.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by slm

I know there is a largish portion of this forum that believe that running any sync program while Calibre is open is dangerous.

For what it may be worth: I run Calibre 24/7 and Dropbox 24/7. I never do anything with the Drobox files copied from Calibre.

And I've never had a problem. I'm reasonable sure that Drobox does not attempt to copy open files.

You've been lucky. Lots of folks HAVE had problems, as evidenced by numerous posts about it in the Calibre forum over the years.

[McGonigle]

In my list of purchases on kobo.com I have confirmation of the 17 books I have bought since 2011. Today only 4 of then are available to me via kobo, and one is a freebee.

Luckily I have always ensured that I have a washed, cleansed and preserved de-DRMed local copy for my personal archives as well as back-ups on various attached and non-attached storage devices under my control and in my possession.

Clicking on the missing books I am presented with a 404 page; the book is no longer available. I assume that the publishing deal has expired.

The reason I only bought 17 books with kobo is that I discovered the issue with books disappearing rather early and also that I exclusively bought when I received the discount codes that they at one time offered to me, but then this practice was discounted or discontinued.

I also found and still find them, fairly expensive.

I shop elsewhere these days.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by slm

I know there is a largish portion of this forum that believe that running any sync program while Calibre is open is dangerous.

It's not belief, or opinion. It's fact. I thus make sure calibre is closed before backing up with rsync.
If a sync skips open files then the copy is likely corrupt even though the local version is OK.

[Aleron Ives]

The Kobo store has serious problems with edition management. Every time the publisher updates the cover image, the book gets a new page URL (title-1, title-2, title-3), a new release date, and all the reviews and ratings get wiped out. It's ridiculous. If you bought a book that gets updated like this, you will initially have access to the old edition in your account, but you won't be able to visit the product page anymore. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the old one simply vanishes from "My Books" after some number of years.