Elipsa weirdness

[franklekens]

Here we go again.
There's a book I'm reading, book A; it's been sideloaded, not bought via Kobo. There's another book I sideloaded Thursday afternoon, book B. And there's a book I downloaded via a Kobo Plus subscription, I think also Thursday afternoon, maybe earlier, book C. Book C I opened, but didn't page further than the first chapter, closed, and then I opened three other books, so it's now the fourth book on the home screen. This was Thursday afternoon.
Maybe relevant: I also have another Kobo device, a Forma, with the same account and more or less the same books; certainly A, B and C are also on them. But I certainly have never opened either book A or B on that device.

The device goes to sleep, I switch it back on Thursday night. I continue reading in book A. I close it, wanting to have a look at book B. Hey, where's book B? It looks like it's not on the device. Hey, it looks like the device has synced with the store. Hey, that's funny: book C is still visible on the homescreen, but with the icon indicating it has yet to be downloaded. But I had downloaded it before. It's been spontaneously deleted. I go to Books, I select the book, it offers me the option to "read via Kobo Plus". It seems to download it, then I get the screen "sorry this is not available in your region". Weird. I go back to the home screen. Hey, book C *has* been redownloaded. I can open it, and I do so. I exit the book again, book C is now the first book on the home screen.

That is, for about a second. Then it gets switched to fourth position again. Why? I do this a few times, each time with the same result: it gets moved back to fourth position.

I then open book A again. Hey, that's weird. Last I read, I was at chapter 27. But now it's reverted to chapter 25, the position I left it in during a reading break this morning. I go to chapter 27, I exit the book again.
I open it again. It's back to chapter 25 again.
I check the annotations/highlights. And what do you know, all the annotations I made during the day disappeared.

Note: all of this without in the interim connecting to a computer or anything. While I was reading it at night, the device suddenly decided to sync, and muck everything up. Sigh.

Oh, hey, I glanced at it just now. Book C is removed again, it's in fourth position *and* has the icon indicating I have to download it again.

What. A. Mess.
And now what? Have to go to factory reset *all over AGAIN*?

And such a pity, because the screen size combined with the overal features of the Kobo firmware make it a very pleasant ereader to use for epubs. (Not for pdfs, but that's a different story.) But this constant database or whatever bull... It's really annoying as hell.

I think someone recommended here somewhere (I often find it hard to search or retrace info on this forum) that after sideloading in Windows 10 it's a good idea not to eject the device via the eject button in Calibre, but exit Calibre first and then eject it via the Windows dialogue (for whatever reason); maybe I'll try that for a while. But the whole thing has been so buggy so far, I don't have high hopes. (And anyway it's a bit of a hassle, to always have to think of this.)

[davidfor]

Most of that sounded like a database corruption on one or both of the devices. Losing the reading position on sideloaded books and needing to redownload purchased books is a sign of this. If it had just been the Kobo Plus book, it might have been a sync issue that might have been fixed using the account repair.

Another possibility is the time on the two devices. If these were different, or the timezone was different, it could cause the problems with the syncing. When a sync happens, the status from the most recent action is taken. Differences in times on the devices could explain the weirdness of the Kobo Plus book.

[vintodrimmer]

I have a similar issue with an entirely different use-case on my Forma (the only Kobo device I own).

I used to upload all the books through Calibre Web's "Kobo Sync". It was all great, until I decided to update the covers in calibre and forcefully re-download the books (otherwise covers didn't change), so I removed and downloaded a new version. Now I can read the book, but as soon as I close it, it says that I have to download it first. This cycle is eternal.

If it's possible for you, I highly recommend switching to something like Syncthing. It sidesteps any possible issues for me.

[franklekens]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Most of that sounded like a database corruption on one or both of the devices. Losing the reading position on sideloaded books and needing to redownload purchased books is a sign of this. If it had just been the Kobo Plus book, it might have been a sync issue that might have been fixed using the account repair.

Another possibility is the time on the two devices. If these were different, or the timezone was different, it could cause the problems with the syncing. When a sync happens, the status from the most recent action is taken. Differences in times on the devices could explain the weirdness of the Kobo Plus book.

Today the download thing with the subscription book happened again. The positions in two sideloaded books seem to have been remembered. I could give the repair a try. That just means signing out and signing back in on the device, correct?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by franklekens

Today the download thing with the subscription book happened again. The positions in two sideloaded books seem to have been remembered. I could give the repair a try. That just means signing out and signing back in on the device, correct?

The repair is an option on the Device information page of the settings. It is intended for fixing issues like this, though it will depend on exactly what has gone wrong.