Troubleshooting Deleted titles then reloaded with Calibre but don't appear on Kindle?

[rsngfrce]

Tried searching for an answer, but I'm not really sure what I'm searching for . I just got a Kindle Basic (7th Gen) and I've been trying to load some books on it from my Windows computer. I've been having issues with the covers not displaying, a similar issue I had using the Kindle Android app in the past. I did some more research on that here and amongst other things, started using Calibre to transfer the books to the Kindle rather than manually. However, I still found most of them didn't display the covers... BUT that is not my concern at the moment.

The problem I now have is that I deleted these from my Kindle, on the Kindle itself. I made some cover changes, then I loaded them onto the Kindle again with Calibre, but the Kindle does not display them (the books) now. Calibre says they are there and they are in the folder where they should be. I was able to load and have the Kindle display a book I had NOT already loaded and deleted. Why will the Kindle now not display them and how can I fix this? I have restarted the Kindle, but that did not help.

Any input on this is greatly appreciated! (It suddenly occurs to me that maybe an ASIN# change would fix this?)

(EDIT: Oh, forgot to mention, because I just remembered... after deleting the books ON the Kindle, when I connected it to my computer I found a bunch of folders still left, so I did some housekeeping, which maybe I shouldn't have done... )

[badgoodDeb]

Are you aware that the Kindle usually opens to the first text page of a book**, and you have to purposefully LOOK for the cover page***? It does not show you the cover of most books, unless you open the menu and look for the cover. That doesn't mean the cover isn't there. It means the Kindle programmers think you want to immediately start reading the book. (It may mean they aren't readers; I'm not sure about that!) I almost never see the covers of my books, because I never think to manually look for them.

This doesn't really answer your question, but it may bump the thread and draw some more attention to your question.

** Or at any rate, what has been designated as "the beginning".

*** Or unless you page backwards from "the beginning" to look for the cover.

[rsngfrce]

Thanks for the bump anyway! Yeah, actually I am referring to not displaying the cover in the library view, instead it displays a generic cover. (Also, I often use Mobi2Mobi to set the first page to 1 for the cover anyway, but that is irrelevant). I THINK now this is because some of my covers were too large (in file size, not pixel dimensions). I don't know if this varies by Kindle, but what was OK on Kindle for Android does NOT seem to be OK on my Kindle Basic 7th GEN (I am thinking).

By the way, I never mentioned that all the books I am referring to are in mobi format. I ran the Quality Check plugin (don't know much about it) on them all in Calibre and made some corrections until they all had passed. However, I THINK that any book I load into Mobi2Mobi and it reports that the clipping limit is exceeded will not display the cover on my Kindle (maybe I am stating the obvious here, but I thought I had Quality Check perform a clipping limit test and everything passed). Books with covers that exceeded the clipping limit would still display the cover in Kindle for Android, I think with that I was having more trouble getting the covers to display full size, so I was increasing their size.

But as I say, at this point, I still need to figure out WHY the Kindle won't display these books anymore and I can't believe with all the Kindle experts here that someone doesn't have a clue? I haven't tried changing the ASIN# of one of them yet, I feel fairly certain that would work, but I'd rather not have to do that for all my books.

[GoSharks]

Have you tried converting mobi-to-mobi in Calibre and sending the new book file to your Kindle? Many file problems can be cured by doing this.

[rsngfrce]

Well, some of the books were already in mobi format, some were epub and converted to mobi in in Calibre. They transferred FINE to the Kindle the first time (except most of the covers weren't displaying in the library). Where everything went WRONG was when I deleted them ON the Kindle, manually deleted the left-over folders I found for them when I hooked the Kindle back up to my computer (the mobis were gone, but aux files where still there) and then RELOADED them with Calibre. Calibre shows they are there (as well as the books I have downloaded from Amazon), I can see the they ARE there in the folders looking at them on my computer, BUT the Kindle WILL NO LONGER display them in the library... it acts like they are no longer there, even though they are. I loaded a book I had not previously deleted at the same time I was reloading the books I had deleted and that one DID show up. For SOME REASON, the Kindle wants to think they are not there and I do not understand why. Nothing I deleted manually affected the books I downloaded from Amazon, I didn't go crazy, I only deleted folders left over for books I had already deleted...

(I seem to specialize in UNIQUE issues... I do it with my phone too!)

[GoSharks]

I would do two things:

1- check to see if your kindle is still indexing...if it is, delete the un-indexed books. (from the home screen do a search on a nonsense word and set the search for 'ALL Text')
2- I know it sounds silly, but definitely try reconverting in Calibre mobi-mobi and then send the new mobi files and see if they work.

If these things don't fix the issue, you might try a factory reset.

[rsngfrce]

Originally Posted by GoSharks

I would do two things:

1- check to see if your kindle is still indexing...if it is, delete the un-indexed books. (from the home screen do a search on a nonsense word and set the search for 'ALL Text')
2- I know it sounds silly, but definitely try reconverting in Calibre mobi-mobi and then send the new mobi files and see if they work.

If these things don't fix the issue, you might try a factory reset.

I appreciate ANY suggestions!

When I do a search from the home screen for a nonsense word, I don't find any option to set the search for 'ALL Text'... possibly not an option on my Kindle Basic 7th Gen? I can 'Search Everywhere' and with a nonsense word, I get "There are no results" in My Items (0) and in Kindle Store(0). Goodreads (0) and Text in books (0) do not show that. I don't know if that show that my Kindle is indexing or not. HOWEVER, I still think that because a book that I had not deleted showed up when the reloaded books that I had deleted did not, that it IS indexing, but for some reason the Kindle WANTS to think the books I deleted are not there even though they are. I realize this gets confusing!

I feel fairly confident that a factory reset WOULD fix this issue, because whatever is stopping the Kindle from displaying the books now would be undone and now that you mention it, I don't have much to loose by doing that, because I only have a relative few books actually showing up on the Kindle now, and I can reload them without much effort. I think I am likely to go that route and will report back. Actually, I think I will try changing the ASIN# on one, and following your suggestion of using Calibre to Mobi to Mobi one of them first, just to see IF either of those methods word. [EDIT: Neither changing the ASIN# of one of the books or converting mobi to mobi resulted in one of the books that had been deleted from the Kindle showing up on the Kindle after I reloaded it again.]

I WOULD still like to know if anyone can think of a reason that this would be happening however. I like to understand how things work and this just isn't making sense to me. My newbie assumption is there is some database file in the Kindle that says these books are deleted and reloading them is not resetting that.

[JSWolf]

First off, why Mobi? Mobi is OBSOLETE. Convert to AZW3 (KF8).

[rsngfrce]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

First off, why Mobi? Mobi is OBSOLETE. Convert to AZW3 (KF8).

Well, first off, no, because the issue already exists and I'd like to solve it nonetheless!

BUT... just like the cover issue, you raise another issue of interest to me, so I will respond, because I am confused and hope to learn!

Please excuse me if anything I ask is very noob! However, I have a NEED to understand things, I have difficulty JUST accepting them. In my recent usage of Calibre, when converting from epub to mobi, I found it gave me the option to convert to the old (mobi 6) format, the new (kf8) format, or both. It also has a warning that various Kindle devices have trouble displaying the new or both file types and if you wish to use the new format on your device, to convert to AZW3 instead of MOBI. That seems clear enough. However, if that is the case, WHY does it give me the option to create a mobi in the new (kf8) format?

Is there a difference between a kf8 format mobi and an AZW3? I THINK AZW3 files can use X-RAY and mobi's cannot, but I may be incorrect about that. Reading the WIKI here, I see that KF8 and AZW3 were designed for the Kindle Fire... is there an advantage to using them on my Kindle Basic 7th Gen? Actually, I am sure there is, since it also states that, "It is also supported by fourth-generation Kindle devices running firmware version 4.1.0 or later" and I have a 7th generation device, but I have yet to figure out HOW to determine what firmware version I have installed, so if anyone could let me know how to do that on the Kindle Basic 7th Gen, I'd greatly appreciated it! [EDIT: I figured the firmware version out!]

Other than that, the main reason I avoided AZW3 and stuck with Mobi files is so I could use Mobi2Mobi to edit the files. I have not come across a similar program for AZW3 files... perhaps I have missed it, perhaps it is not necessary, perhaps Calibre can do whatever needs to be done.

I'd LOVE ANY INFO anyone wants to provide me on these subjects!

[eschwartz]

mobi2mobi is for editing the metadata. Normally that is not necessary since calibre can do all the work for you, but in case you need to check something you can use Java Mobi Metadata Editor.


Are these books Personal Documents, or "ebooks"? (The difference is in the exth header 501, cdetype -- a value of "EBOK" displays as G-d/Amazon intended, a value of "PDOC" displays that ugly "Personal" banner.)
A PDOC will always have the cover extracted from the ebook file, and an EBOK will always depend on downloading the cover from Amazon's servers, which can be problematic so calibre sideloads the cover for you.

And a book with an ASIN will automatically be treated as EBOK I believe.



I would think the problem has to be the indexing (no other explanation I am aware of for books not showing up) so I would give the search-for-nonsense-string another try. There is an option somewhere, though I have an older firmware and am not sure what yours looks like. (Mine is just setting the search between My Items, Dictionary, This Book, Wikipedia etc. but the UI was changed...)


Regarding AZW3, that is another name for KF8 (Kindle Format 8) / mobi8 (mobipocket database format 8) / AZW3 (ebook-file.azw3)

The advantage of KF8 over mobi7 is better support for General Stuff (like having embedded fonts), internally cleaner and able to be cleanly unpacked into the original source, support for updating additional metadata e.g. cover, also, it handles highlighting hyphenated words better... no reason whatsoever to use MOBI unless you have a device that doesn't support KF8.

To see what firmware you have, go to Menu ==> Settings == Menu (again) ==> Device Info
Your Kindle Touch 2/KT2 (as we call it) first shipped with the 5.6.x line of firmware. It is for sure recent enough to support AZW3.

[badgoodDeb]

Woah .... all sorts of info I didn't know here. Must bookmark this whole thread ..... (memo to self) ..... glad I stopped in. Didn't know about anything newer than "mobi"!

[rsngfrce]

Well, I did a system reset on my Kindle and as I expected, this allowed me to load all the books onto it again and have them show up. Also, I had a hunch for some reason that the covers might show up in the library better if they were AZW3 files rather than MOBI files, so I converted them from MOBI to AZW3 with Calibre before transferring them with Calibre. All of the covers showed up in the library this time (instead of generic covers) except for two of the books. Those two books I removed using Calibre (NOT on the Kindle itself) and reloaded the MOBI versions, which then showed up on the Kindle with the covers. WHY these two show generic covers as AZW3 files I do not know. (Also, I must add, I had reduced the files size of the covers before converting them to AZW3 files from the MOBI files, these were the same MOBI files that I had reloaded and were not showing up on the Kindle, so I am NOT SURE the covers WOULDN'T have shown up IF I had loaded the MOBI versions this time...)

Originally Posted by eschwartz

mobi2mobi is for editing the metadata. Normally that is not necessary since calibre can do all the work for you, but in case you need to check something you can use Java Mobi Metadata Editor.

From what I can see at least and maybe I am missing something, Calibre has very limited metadata editing capably compared to Mobi2Mobi. I tried Java Mobi Metadata Editor and it is indeed capable of editing the metadata of an AZW3 file, but again, it seems limited compared to Mobi2Mobi in what it can edit. I find many more options in Mobi2Mobi, such as StartReading, UpdatedTitle and such... is there anything that lets you edit THESE on an AZW3 file?

Are these books Personal Documents, or "ebooks"? (The difference is in the exth header 501, cdetype -- a value of "EBOK" displays as G-d/Amazon intended, a value of "PDOC" displays that ugly "Personal" banner.)
A PDOC will always have the cover extracted from the ebook file, and an EBOK will always depend on downloading the cover from Amazon's servers, which can be problematic so calibre sideloads the cover for you.

And a book with an ASIN will automatically be treated as EBOK I believe.

Well, when converting them, Calibre seems to want to set them to [PDOC]. I'm confused by this however, because I believe I ran the Quality Check plugin on them all for missing EBOK type before transferring them to my Kindle and the plugin said they all passed, but a couple of them showed up with the "Personal" banner. I reconverted those and changed [PDOC] to [EBOK] which fixed this issue for them, but that was only a couple of them, so this may actually be CONTROLLED somewhere else, since I believe I originally set had them all as [PDOC] per Calibre. They SHOULD ALL have ASINs though, I also ran Quality Check for that (but a couple still ended up as personal documents).

I would think the problem has to be the indexing (no other explanation I am aware of for books not showing up) so I would give the search-for-nonsense-string another try. There is an option somewhere, though I have an older firmware and am not sure what yours looks like. (Mine is just setting the search between My Items, Dictionary, This Book, Wikipedia etc. but the UI was changed...)


Regarding AZW3, that is another name for KF8 (Kindle Format 8) / mobi8 (mobipocket database format 8) / AZW3 (ebook-file.azw3)

The advantage of KF8 over mobi7 is better support for General Stuff (like having embedded fonts), internally cleaner and able to be cleanly unpacked into the original source, support for updating additional metadata e.g. cover, also, it handles highlighting hyphenated words better... no reason whatsoever to use MOBI unless you have a device that doesn't support KF8.

To see what firmware you have, go to Menu ==> Settings == Menu (again) ==> Device Info
Your Kindle Touch 2/KT2 (as we call it) first shipped with the 5.6.x line of firmware. It is for sure recent enough to support AZW3.

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Woah .... all sorts of info I didn't know here. Must bookmark this whole thread ..... (memo to self) ..... glad I stopped in. Didn't know about anything newer than "mobi"!

I take it as a great compliment that questions I have asked in a thread have taught something to a Wizard with 13388651 Karma! Therefore, I have changed my title to "New but not Noob"...

[badgoodDeb]

PS karma here works in weird ways. When you have a lot, you give a lot. So if somebody's joke amuses you, and you give them karma, you by default dump a huge mass of karma on them. So karma tends to grow in astronomical leaps. You can specify how much you are giving, but it seems stingy to adjust it very far downwards!

edit: See, I bumped your karma by 67142 in 1 go.

PSPS There is a thread about "how does karma work" if you really care.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by rsngfrce

From what I can see at least and maybe I am missing something, Calibre has very limited metadata editing capably compared to Mobi2Mobi. I tried Java Mobi Metadata Editor and it is indeed capable of editing the metadata of an AZW3 file, but again, it seems limited compared to Mobi2Mobi in what it can edit. I find many more options in Mobi2Mobi, such as StartReading, UpdatedTitle and such... is there anything that lets you edit THESE on an AZW3 file?[/CODE]

SRL (start reading location) requires editing the actual book file, which mobi2mobi does as well as metadata. JMME does not do both, it only updates metadata. You can edit the book itself using calibre's Edit Book, which supports AZW3 and EPUB.
You will need to use the Set Semantics tool to set the location of the semantics element "Text" (used to mark the location of the first text in the book).

Why do you need to set "UpdatedTitle"? I can see here: MOBI that it actually exists, but TBH I have no idea what it is. It seems to be an exth header in which case JMME should be able to set it -- it may not be labeled, but IIRC you can set any metadata if you have the numerical identifier.
And is it different from the regular old title?

calibre is mainly focused on changing what an end-user is likely to care about, all the common metadata elements that will be used the most are mapped to easily-understood metadata columns. For unusual needs (which I have not hit on personally) you may need a dedicated tool I guess.

[/CODE]Well, when converting them, Calibre seems to want to set them to [PDOC]. I'm confused by this however, because I believe I ran the Quality Check plugin on them all for missing EBOK type before transferring them to my Kindle and the plugin said they all passed, but a couple of them showed up with the "Personal" banner. I reconverted those and changed [PDOC] to [EBOK] which fixed this issue for them, but that was only a couple of them, so this may actually be CONTROLLED somewhere else, since I believe I originally set had them all as [PDOC] per Calibre. They SHOULD ALL have ASINs though, I also ran Quality Check for that (but a couple still ended up as personal documents).

By default calibre exports books as PDOC (although the library copy is I believe EBOK) by changing it on-the-fly with the other metadata. Setting the PDOC tag from [PDOC] to [EBOK] in Output Options* has the side effect of stopping this. So does manually embedding an ASIN with QC. Works perfectly on my Kindle, and many others' as well, so I don't know why it wouldn't work for you?


* -- Reset saved conversion settings via Bulk Edit Metadata or previously-converted books will have old settings overriding it.

[rsngfrce]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

PS karma here works in weird ways. When you have a lot, you give a lot. So if somebody's joke amuses you, and you give them karma, you by default dump a huge mass of karma on them. So karma tends to grow in astronomical leaps. You can specify how much you are giving, but it seems stingy to adjust it very far downwards!

edit: See, I bumped your karma by 67142 in 1 go.

PSPS There is a thread about "how does karma work" if you really care.

Wow, thanks! I actually read the WIKI on it, but found it confusing! I guess I better look for the thread.

[EDIT] For anyone else who may be interested, here are some forum links on the Karma system:

What is "Karma" and How Does it Work?

How karma at MobileRead works