WARNING: signing out of Kobo destroys all your organising

[LivresInOz]

Kobo has not seen fit to warn users that if you sign out of your Kobo account on the device, ALL of your books will lose their connection to the different collections you've made.

The collections will be there but none of the books will be in them.
You will also lose all annotations.

So in my case, that's dozens of hours of work lost.

I wish they would warn people.

Add to this the fact:
- you now can't add any extra memory to their devices
- you can't EASILY send or receive books wirelessly
- it won't sign in to Overdrive (the whole reason I signed out: i read that singing out of Kobo fiex the problem)
and I'm just about fed up with this company.

Alternative suggestions sought !
(Also any suggestions for backing up your collection info, until I can find a better reader)

[DNSB]

I am tempted to ask what did you expect when you signed out of your Kobo and your database was replaced with a fresh blank copy?

I manage my collections through calibre, it's not a big deal to me that when I factory reset or sign out/sign in, the database is replaced with a fresh copy.

I have no issues with wirelessly receiving books I have purchased from Kobo or that I have checked out of the library. I have also used calibre's web server to transfer books to my Kobos. Again no issues.

As for signing into Overdrive? What issues are you running into with that? I just select my library, enter my password and good to go.

You might to look into calibre with davidfor's Kobo Utilities. This will allow you to have backups of the database, check the database for issues, etc. Either the builtin KoboTouch or the add-on KoboTouchExtended driver will allow you to manage your collections. You can also use the Annotations plugin to copy the annotations from your Kobo into calibre though that is a one way street.

As for adding memory by which I assume that you mean an external uSD card? That has been quite a while. Though I have updated my Clara HD from it's original storage to 32GB and now to 128GB.

[rashkae]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I am tempted to ask what did you expect when you signed out of your Kobo and your database was replaced with a fresh blank copy?

Umm, yeah,, who would expect signing out replaces your database and settings? That's actually a really weird thing *I* would never expect. If I select sign out, I expect the only effect would be not being able to buy stuff from the store.. Since I know DRM is a thing, I might further expect that DRM books would no longer be readable... but to delete my database with all my reading positions and annotation, including all the documents that are not cloud synced? Nobody would expect that, and a clear warning would be appropriate.

Edit: Should have verfied this before shoving my keyboard so far down my throat. Was the warning always there?

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by rashkae

Umm, yeah,, who would expect signing out replaces your database and settings? That's actually a really weird thing *I* would never expect. If I select sign out, I expect the only effect would be not being able to buy stuff from the store.. Since I know DRM is a thing, I might further expect that DRM books would no longer be readable... but to delete my database with all my reading positions and annotation, including all the documents that are not cloud synced? Nobody would expect that, and a clear warning would be appropriate.

Depending how they reset they are given one of two warnings-

1) if they went to settings- account- sign out they got:

“Any reading progress, highlights, or notes since your last sync on (date + time) will be lost.”

Which is what happens, any sideloaded content will remain but until you log back in will be inaccessible. It would be nice if they made specific mention of sideloaded contents notes, reading progress, etc. also not being synced. But this is typical of ereaders.

2) if they opted for a software factory reset they’d have gotten this:

“All books, documents and custom settings will be deleted from this device”

Again pretty straight forward.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by zenji

Alternative suggestions sought !
(Also any suggestions for backing up your collection info, until I can find a better reader)

Collections are very much the easy part. Just follow the instructions in the sticky post on how to set up shelves/collections management with Calibre.

[Quoth]

Use Calibre. It's a bigger issue with a Kindle.

This is totally logical and correct behaviour.

[LivresInOz]

To people who gave useful advice, thankyou.
___________________
When I sign out of Google, I don't expect to lose all my labels (tags/boxes).
When I sign out of the Kindle app, I don't lose anything.
There are countless other examples.
At the very least, a warning would have been nice - I'd say: basic courtesy.
There's no way I would have signed out.
___________________
Does the word 'collections' or 'shelves' appear in this warning?

"Any reading progress, highlights, or notes since your last sync will be lost."

No it doesn't.
Even though I expect for many of us, collections are more important than highlights and notes.

...Just as it also doesn't say that your bookmarks will be retained (and even any words you wrote associated with them).

Indeed, the fact that your bookmarks are retained makes me wonder why your collections aren't.

I'm sure someone will leap to the company's defence though**

I'm very open to some genuine IT expert explaining to me why it's technically impossible or just too massively onerous for the company to retain bookmarks but not collections.
____________________________________________

** I notice on forums there's always one or two kind souls who do a better job of defending some company better than any employee ever could. "Well if you don't like the effects Thalidomide have, you can always stop using it! No one forced you to buy a Ford Pinto!" 🤣

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by zenji

When I sign out of Google, I don't expect to lose all my labels (tags/boxes).
When I sign out of the Kindle app, I don't lose anything.
There are countless other examples I could give.
At the very least, a warning would have been nice - indeed, I'd say: basic courtesy.
There is no way I would have signed out if I'd had such a warning.
___________________
Does the word 'collections' or 'shelves' appear at all in this warning?

"Any reading progress, highlights, or notes since your last sync will be lost."

No it doesn't.
Even though I expect for many of us, collections are more important than highlights and notes.

...Just as it also doesn't say that your bookmarks will be retained (and even any words you wrote associated with them).

Indeed, the fact that bookmarks are retained makes me wonder why your collections aren't.

I'm sure someone will leap to the company's defence though**

I'm very open to some genuine IT expert explaining to me why it's technically impossible or just too massively onerous for the company to retain bookmarks but not collections.
___________________
To people who gave useful advice, thankyou.
___________________
** I notice on forums there's always one or two kind souls who do a better job of defending some company better than any employee ever could. "Well if you don't like the effects Thalidomide have, you can always stop using it! No one forced you to buy a Ford Pinto!" 🤣

Perhaps if you hadn't made duplicate posts for the same issue, and were capable of taking information given to you in that post and applying it here as well then you wouldn't be so lost.

But since you clearly lack that ability, and did make duplicate posts here let me repeat what was told to you that it might assist you in finally understanding as well help others avoid your blunders in the future.


When you sync your Kobo, it transmits (that's fancy IT talk for sends) certain data to Kobo to store on their servers (servers are like big notebooks to keep information). The information sent includes, but is not limited to:

Collections- the names of any collections you have on the device, in addition to any Kobo purchased books* within those collections.

Bookmarks - any book marks you have in Kobo purchased books*

Annotations - any annotations you have in Kobo purchased books*

*Kobo purchased books which have not been stripped of DRM and sideloaded back to the device.


Information NOT sent includes the following

ANY INFORMATION ON SIDELOADED BOOKS OR DOCUMENTS TO THE DEVICE


Now as others told you in your other post, it's likely your devices database (a database is fancy IT talk for a means to store information) was corrupted, this would potentially cause the Overdrive issues you had, as well the syncing issues. After all if the information being sent to Kobo is too damaged they can't read it, and your Kobo wont be able to make sense of it when it tries to rebuild. Think of this like trying to build a house from blueprints which have been burned significantly, you might get certain parts right but you'll miss the details of anything on the blueprints which were burned.


TL;DR- Your Kobo's database likely became corrupted which would be the root cause of the issues you had. As literally no one else has had this issue upgrading to a now month+ old firmware. In the future please refrain from making duplicate posts, and perhaps don't make declarative statements when you don't understand what's going on with your device.

[astoriedsoul]

Originally Posted by zenji

To people who gave useful advice, thankyou.
___________________
When I sign out of Google, I don't expect to lose all my labels (tags/boxes).
When I sign out of the Kindle app, I don't lose anything.
There are countless other examples.
At the very least, a warning would have been nice - I'd say: basic courtesy.
There's no way I would have signed out.
___________________
Does the word 'collections' or 'shelves' appear in this warning?

"Any reading progress, highlights, or notes since your last sync will be lost."

No it doesn't.
Even though I expect for many of us, collections are more important than highlights and notes.

...Just as it also doesn't say that your bookmarks will be retained (and even any words you wrote associated with them).

Indeed, the fact that your bookmarks are retained makes me wonder why your collections aren't.

I'm sure someone will leap to the company's defence though**

I'm very open to some genuine IT expert explaining to me why it's technically impossible or just too massively onerous for the company to retain bookmarks but not collections.
____________________________________________

** I notice on forums there's always one or two kind souls who do a better job of defending some company better than any employee ever could. "Well if you don't like the effects Thalidomide have, you can always stop using it! No one forced you to buy a Ford Pinto!" ��

I don't know what you thought would happen? To me, it's logical that when I remove or sign out of an account, stuff disappears. Collections are like a device setting. It's going to reset. Calibre makes it easy to back up and restore most things. You asked for alternative suggestions, and this is the easiest one to implement. Calibre will change your reading life.

Or, you could have looked into the feature on any number of threads in this forum before doing it. This, instead of starting your post off as a rant, and then condescending people's knowledge when offering explanations or whatnot when you don't like the answers from people who are quite experienced in these devices.

Kobo also tells you here. You can infer that there will be data loss.

If you just want to toot Amazon's horn, then be more upfront about it. Kindles are a nightmare. So, I'll be that person to defend Kobo as this was user error. I've literally never had an issue.

[LivresInOz]

1.

Originally Posted by MGlitch

and were capable of taking information given to you in that post and applying it here as well then you wouldn't be so lost.

But since you clearly lack that ability
...
When you sync your Kobo, it transmits (that's fancy IT talk for sends)
...
it's likely your devices database (a database is fancy IT talk for a means to store information)
...
perhaps don't make declarative statements when you don't understand what's going on with your device.

Your patronising comments are unnecessary. It's a shame because you seem knowledgeable.

2.

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Perhaps if you hadn't made duplicate posts for the same issue

They are not duplicates. It's justifiable/reasonable to separate them into different posts. The other post is about the OVERDRIVE issue, not the signing-out-destruction.
It is worth a separate post and other people on here have had that exact issue:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh....php?p=4154960
(That's where I got the advice to sign out).

The destruction is mentioned in the Overdrive post because I felt it was v important people know that to avoid the same grief. Perhaps though I should have deleted that part just to ensure it wasn't regarded as a duplicate? Bad luck to those people, yeah?

3.

Originally Posted by MGlitch

and were capable of taking information given to you

I am already looking into the solutions offered to prevent a repeat of this using Calibre (which I do use) and will check the sticky.

4.

Originally Posted by MGlitch

perhaps don't make declarative statements when you don't understand what's going on with your device.

What are you referring to?
That's a bit controlling, isn't it?

I would honestly regard myself as a medium-level user.
I have managed to install Koreader and Plato, install Kobo uncaged and use it even on an old XP machine, and edit the nickelmenu etc.

5. Thanks for the technical info anyway - good base-level info to know!

6. However, I do need to correct something:
It does actually save bookmarks in sideloaded books

7. My logic is this:
a) Kobo knows a major reason people buy it is because you can put your own books on it (My number ONE reason - I would NOT have bought it otherwise. Indeed: I've bought ONE Kobo book in my life - and before I got the device!)

b) Kobo provides the 'Collection' feature to be used

c) They can save bookmarks for the users own (non-Kobo-store) books

d) Given all the above, I think its reasonable to save the info about what book is assigned to what collection

e) But more importantly: it's unconscionable to fail to warn people they will lose all this data simply by signing out - unlike almost any other service you could name . By the way we are talking about adding a couple of words to the interface here!

(Feel free to name another service/product on the planet where signing out destroys such significant data)


But none of this matters to some people, because for some strange reason, some people are always going to defend the company/manufacturer. I have no idea why they have this bias - maybe they are businesspeople. But that just seems to be the kneejerk reaction of about 10% of people on forums.

[LivresInOz]

8.

Originally Posted by astoriedsoul

If you just want to toot Amazon's horn, then be more upfront about it. Kindles are a nightmare. So, I'll be that person to defend Kobo as this was user error. I've literally never had an issue.

Making accusations with no evidence. Yet laughable, since I have zero love for Amazon. Less than zero. If you re-read what I said, I was giving an example of another platform to test whether its reasonable to expect large data loss upon signing out.
Again: feel free to name an account on the planet where you lose that much data when you sign out.
I'm waiting!


9.

Originally Posted by astoriedsoul

Or, you could have looked into the feature on any number of threads in this forum before doing it. This, instead of starting your post off as a rant, and then condescending people's knowledge when offering explanations or whatnot when you don't like the answers from people who are quite experienced in these devices.

a) The person who gave the advice to sign out of Kobo to fix the Overdrive problem was a 'Wizard' with 3000 posts. I thought the advice was followable. (See the actual thread below)

b) 'Rant': the name given to people's complaints by fanboys and followers who hate anyone who rocks the boat. People who would have us be using Windows 95 and never improve anything

c) ...Not that what you're doing in the above is a rant or anything. Just complaining about the PAST behaviour of someone who has almost zero effect on you, whose actions you will have little affect on, without including a single word that's actually helpful. No, that's not a rant! 🤣

d) Feel free to provide the evidence of where I was 'condescending people's knowledge' (sic)



10. I have no evidence of 'database corruption'. Everything was working fine. Indeed, I'd just synced I think. The problem I had is described well here and this is the thread that also offered the "solution" - signing out of Kobo.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh....php?p=4154960

[LivresInOz]

Originally Posted by meeera

Collections are very much the easy part. Just follow the instructions in the sticky post on how to set up shelves/collections management with Calibre.

Meera, thanks for your kind simple brief good advice, free of snarky comments, which I will now follow, after responding to the trolling (with a bit of helpful info mixed in 🤣 ) above.

Originally Posted by rashkae

Umm, yeah,, who would expect signing out replaces your database and settings?

Rashkae, Thanks for entering the lion's den with your statement of what I too regard as commonsense.

My challenge still stands people:
name ONE reputable service or company that upon signing out destroys user-created data equivalent to the collections info destroyed by Kobo. I.E What collections several hundred books are actually assigned to.


PS Thanks to everyone including the troll patrol 🤣 for helping to produce enough keywords for Google that anyone considering Kobo will see this. And hopefully the tone-deaf Kobo company itself will consider fixing it!

WHICH WAS THE ENTIRE PURPOSE.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by zenji

1.

Your patronising comments are unnecessary. It's a shame because you seem knowledgeable.

Nor was yours, yet you felt the need to insult those trying to help you. Perhaps you can take your own advice here.

2.

They are not duplicates. It's justifiable/reasonable to separate them into different posts. The other post is about the OVERDRIVE issue, not the signing-out-destruction.
It is worth a separate post and other people on here have had that exact issue:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh....php?p=4154960
(That's where I got the advice to sign out).

It would have been worth adding to that post then, though for the nth time your use case was different than the norm. A fact which for some reason you still seem to want to pretend isn't the case despite multiple people telling you so.

4.
What are you referring to?
That's a bit controlling, isn't it?

In your other post you insist this is a bug, you also continue to insist your experience with this is the norm, when it is in fact an outlier.

6. However, I do need to correct something:
It does actually save bookmarks in sideloaded books

Interesting, perhaps I mistook it for doing the factory reset. Obviously signing out doesn't remove sideloaded books so good to know bookmarks are preserved, though this is data stored on the device, not on servers.

7. My logic is this:
a) Kobo knows very well that a major reason people buy the device is because you can put your own books on it (that is the Number 1 reason I myself bought it instead of Kindle)

Actually you and most people on this forum would be in the minority. Many people who buy an ereader w/ a dedicated ebook shop built in are content to shop from that storefront. They may add library books, which can be done from the current line up of Kobos from the device. Which makes Kobo quite happy as they then have a continued revenue past the purchase of the device.

b) Kobo provides the 'Collection' feature to be used

c) They can save bookmarks for the users own (non-Kobo-store) books

d) Given all the above, I think its reasonable to save the info about what book is assigned to what collection
and
frankly it's unconscienable to fail to warn people they will lose all this data simply by signing out - unlike almost any other service you could name (Feel free to name another service on the planet where signing out destroys such significant data)

Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, likely every other eink ereader company. You've listed Google as an example, but it's an apples to oranges example since w/ Googles offerings it's all stored on their servers where as

8. I have no evidence of 'database corruption'. Everything was working fine. Indeed, I'd just synced I think. The problem I had is described well here and this is the thread that also offered the "solution" - signing out of Kobo.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh....php?p=4154960

You have that you were booted out of OD, and that your collections didn't sync.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by zenji

A deliberate move by Kobo to throw books you didn't buy from them out of your collections?

You might want to remember that Kobo is located in Canada and they are constrained by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) which governs private entities in Canada. Kobo collects a minimum of information on sideloaded books that might be considered personally identifiable so basically, they get the page read counts and time spent reading.

As for the bookmarks surviving a signout/signin, Kobo stores bookmarks for sideloaded books in two places. One being in the database which would not survive a factory reset or signout/signin while the second is in the Digital Editions/Annotations file which I have never checked after a signout/signin but would definitely not survive a factory reset.

[LivresInOz]

Im assuming this is the correct post to work out how to get Calibre to manage collections?

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=193184