Wrong date on Device

JohnCenne · 01-05-2018, 06:13 PM

I am running Calibre 3.14, add new books on the PC and then copy them to the SdCard of my Samsung A5 (2016).
The date on the device is always set to 1 Jan 1970.

I copy my ebooks to the device by dragging the bookname on the library page to the CardA button on the toolbar

When I look on the device page in Calibre, the Date field (and I presume this is the date added, because there are no details) is always set to 1 Jan 1970. On the Library page the date is correct.
On Windows File Explorer, the date created and modified for these eBooks on the Device are correct.

Can I do something?

kovidgoyal · 01-05-2018, 10:29 PM

You can try reformatting the sd card as fat32, other than that, I cannot think of anything.

AnotherCat · 01-05-2018, 11:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnCenne

I am running Calibre 3.14, add new books on the PC and then copy them to the SdCard of my Samsung A5 (2016).
The date on the device is always set to 1 Jan 1970.

I copy my ebooks to the device by dragging the bookname on the library page to the CardA button on the toolbar

When I look on the device page in Calibre, the Date field (and I presume this is the date added, because there are no details) is always set to 1 Jan 1970. On the Library page the date is correct.
On Windows File Explorer, the date created and modified for these eBooks on the Device are correct.

Can I do something?

I have noticed this same thing too but I have not exercised my brain much about it

. As you say dates are correct on device but stated incorrectly in Calibre.

I have not troubled myself much about it as my reading app works correctly for date sorting, except to think it is possibly just a simple error in Calibre's handling of the date returned from Android devices - I think Calibre may be a factor of a 1000 out (one way or the other) being confused between milliseconds and seconds.

Possibly working in Epoch time which is in seconds instead of in required milliseconds (if I have that the right way around)? But it is entirely possible that my offhand thought about this is incorrect.

EDIT: when I have a moment I may have a little play with Epoch date and factor of 1000 in Excel and see what happens. Later - Whoops, not as easy as I thought without other work so will leave to Kovid to comment on if I am on the right track.

kovidgoyal · 01-06-2018, 12:44 AM

It's definitely not a factor of anything problem, and it does not affect all devices. Basically, the device is returning either 0 or some invalid/unexpected data as the timestamp for MTP objects. Why it is doing so, is the question, I know of no way to debug that, short of running calibre from source and inspecting the data you get from the MTP subsystem on the OS. Which you can do by getting the calibre source code and then inserting some print statements in mtp/filesystem_cache.py around line 40 to see why the modified timestamp is not failing.

https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/develop.html

AnotherCat · 01-06-2018, 05:26 PM

I'll take your word for it, I'm no software engineer

. It was just one of the potential date issues I recalled when I came across this thread and that it returned the Epoch date if the usual seconds instead of milliseconds assumed.

The reading device I use is a Samsung tablet, so the same manufacturer as the OP's device, but out of interest I copied some books onto a Sony phone and the same date issue occurs. Both are Android 7.0 OS.

The only, and not very good, comparison I can make is with Sony's Media Go; it is the only PC media management application I use that I know offhand explicitly states an MTP connection with devices when returning properties. It returns correct Created, Modified and Added Dates on both the devices mentioned above for media.

In the end it is not issue for me, I was just passing by, the only date sorting I do is on the device itself.

01-05-2018, 06:13 PM	#1
JohnCenne Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2018 Device: Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)	Wrong date on Device I am running Calibre 3.14, add new books on the PC and then copy them to the SdCard of my Samsung A5 (2016). The date on the device is always set to 1 Jan 1970. I copy my ebooks to the device by dragging the bookname on the library page to the CardA button on the toolbar When I look on the device page in Calibre, the Date field (and I presume this is the date added, because there are no details) is always set to 1 Jan 1970. On the Library page the date is correct. On Windows File Explorer, the date created and modified for these eBooks on the Device are correct. Can I do something?

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01-05-2018, 10:29 PM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,860 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	You can try reformatting the sd card as fat32, other than that, I cannot think of anything.

01-06-2018, 12:44 AM	#4
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,860 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	It's definitely not a factor of anything problem, and it does not affect all devices. Basically, the device is returning either 0 or some invalid/unexpected data as the timestamp for MTP objects. Why it is doing so, is the question, I know of no way to debug that, short of running calibre from source and inspecting the data you get from the MTP subsystem on the OS. Which you can do by getting the calibre source code and then inserting some print statements in mtp/filesystem_cache.py around line 40 to see why the modified timestamp is not failing. https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/develop.html

01-06-2018, 05:26 PM	#5
AnotherCat .... Posts: 1,547 Karma: 18068960 Join Date: May 2012 Device: ....	I'll take your word for it, I'm no software engineer . It was just one of the potential date issues I recalled when I came across this thread and that it returned the Epoch date if the usual seconds instead of milliseconds assumed. The reading device I use is a Samsung tablet, so the same manufacturer as the OP's device, but out of interest I copied some books onto a Sony phone and the same date issue occurs. Both are Android 7.0 OS. The only, and not very good, comparison I can make is with Sony's Media Go; it is the only PC media management application I use that I know offhand explicitly states an MTP connection with devices when returning properties. It returns correct Created, Modified and Added Dates on both the devices mentioned above for media. In the end it is not issue for me, I was just passing by, the only date sorting I do is on the device itself.