Since Kobo update, series information doesn't transfer to device

[Liudprand]

I have a Kobo Libra 2. There was a Kobo update a few days ago, which now causes a warning to be triggered in Calibre when I plug the device into my laptop: "WARNING: Failed - Kobo Database version unsupported - See details".

The details explain: "You can still send books to your Kobo with calibre, but deleting books and managing collections is disabled."

I'm confused by this, because I wasn't aware there was any way of managing collections (as opposed to series information) from Calibre. But I now find that series information doesn't transfer to the device, however many times I reconnect it to my laptop.

Will there be a fix for this, does anyone know? And, if not, is there any other way of editing/adding series information in Kobo directly, without using Calibre?

Thanks in advance!

[theducks]

In the Kobo driver configuration:Advanced tab: tick Attempt to support newer firmware

BTW I assume you are running Calibre 5.31.1

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Liudprand

I have a Kobo Libra 2. There was a Kobo update a few days ago, which now causes a warning to be triggered in Calibre when I plug the device into my laptop: "WARNING: Failed - Kobo Database version unsupported - See details".

The details explain: "You can still send books to your Kobo with calibre, but deleting books and managing collections is disabled."

I'm confused by this, because I wasn't aware there was any way of managing collections (as opposed to series information) from Calibre. But I now find that series information doesn't transfer to the device, however many times I reconnect it to my laptop.

Collection management for Kobo ereaders has been in the KoboTouch driver since shortly after Kobo introduced them. At the time, Kobo called them shelves. Updating metadata on the device is much newer. And I hadn't updated that message to include that.

Will there be a fix for this, does anyone know? And, if not, is there any other way of editing/adding series information in Kobo directly, without using Calibre?

As stated by @theducks and the message, you can use the "Attempt to support newer firmware" to do this. Or wait for the next release of calibre as that bumps the supported firmware version. And it is always a good idea when seeing this message to check the Kobo forum. There will be discussion on any new firmware version and whether there are issues with any of the tools used with the devices.

[Liudprand]

Thank you both for these responses. I think I'll wait for the update - don't really fancy risking having to do a factory reset!

On the collection management issue - and I'm very sorry if I'm being dim - how do I access the "KoboTouch driver"? Is it a plugin? Either way, how do I use it for the purpose of backing up and adding collection information? I have Googled this, but can't find a simple guide.

[Liudprand]

Sorry - just found what appears to be the correct dialogue box, but it doesn't show any of the collections that I've already added directly on the Libra 2. If anyone could point me to a simple, step-by-step guide for this, I'd be grateful.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Liudprand

Thank you both for these responses. I think I'll wait for the update - don't really fancy risking having to do a factory reset!

The update should be out at the end of the week, but, the risk is zero. The message is there because there could be a risk with a new and unknown firmware version. But, this one is now known and tested. I actually see the beta firmware and usually know if there will be any problems when the firmware is released. If the timing is right, sometimes get the update into calibre before the release.

On the collection management issue - and I'm very sorry if I'm being dim - how do I access the "KoboTouch driver"? Is it a plugin? Either way, how do I use it for the purpose of backing up and adding collection information? I have Googled this, but can't find a simple guide.

Just in case you haven't found it, the simplest way is when the device is connected. Right-click the device button and choose the option to configure the device.

Originally Posted by Liudprand

Sorry - just found what appears to be the correct dialogue box, but it doesn't show any of the collections that I've already added directly on the Libra 2. If anyone could point me to a simple, step-by-step guide for this, I'd be grateful.

I'm not sure what you are looking at and expecting to see. If you are looking at the "Collections columns" field in the driver, then this is not a list of collections. It is a list of the columns that have values to make the collections from. For example, I have a custom column called "#source" which is holds were I got the book from (Kobo, Amazon, Author, etc). Each book has one of those values. A collection is created for each value and the books with that value are put into that collection.

For a guide for setting up collections, look at https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kob...nd_Collections. I don't really like the "Step-by-step Tutorial" section that someone added recently. The "Setting up calibre" part is OK, but it there is no reason to use the "series" column for collections. The bit under "Defining Collections" should be ignored. But, the rest is should get you started. And if you have questions, ask away.

[Liudprand]

Thanks very much for this - very helpful.

But I'm still not completely clear about a couple of things. Perhaps I should just lay out what my problem is, and you could let me know if Calibre currently provides a solution?

Basically, on my new Libra 2 (still within the 30-day period for returning it with a fault), I have a lot of side-loaded books that I've spent quite a few hours sorting into collections (fiction, ancient history, life sciences, etc. etc.). I've been advised by Kobo support that I should factory-reset the device to see if that fixes a fault - namely, probably at least once a day, it just freezes and has to reboot, or be restarted manually. They warn that doing this will mean I lose all of the side-loaded books (not so much of a problem), along with annotations, collections information, etc. (a problem).

So, basically I'm wondering if there's a way of backing up the collections information - all of which was entered manually on the device. Is Calibre capable of "reading" that data from the device, in such a way that it can then be re-applied once I've done the reset and re-loaded the books? The guide you linked to looks useful, but not for this exact issue, perhaps?

Thanks again!

[Liudprand]

Frustratingly, my H2O - which I bought the Libra 2 to replace, mainly because of its extra storage - didn't have this problem at all!

[Liudprand]

UPDATE: Okay, now I seem to be in serious trouble!

I tried following the instructions in that link, and I did indeed manage to add a "Collections" column in Calibre. But then, after the next time I plugged in the device, all of the collections info. on the device was replaced with series information, and the collections I'd meticulously put together were COMPLETELY ERASED

[Liudprand]

Sorry - hit "Post Quic Reply" by mistake there, before I'd finished...

So, it seems as if Calibre can't distinguish properly between collections and series data. Alternatively, I might have done something - but, if that's the case, some kind of warning dialogue would have been useful: "Are you sure you want to erase all of the collections data from your device?"

Anyway, I then decided to uninstall Calibre completely, and remove Registry entries (I tried the instructions here first: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=98977 - but it didn't work: all my settings were still there when I opened Calibre again). There were three or four entries that the Registry wouldn't let me remove - and I can only assume they contain all of my old (bad!) Calibre settings, because when I reinstalled it there were all still there!!!

So, I'd be really grateful if you could let me know how to remove Calibre COMPLETELY, so that I can start from scratch - and then remember never to try and get it to handle collections data!

Again, many thanks in advance...

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Liudprand

So, I'd be really grateful if you could let me know how to remove Calibre COMPLETELY, so that I can start from scratch - and then remember never to try and get it to handle collections data!

Again, many thanks in advance...

Delete the settings folder. Usually it's in User/AppData/Roaming. The folder is named calibre.

And why would you not want Calibre to handle your collections? It's very convenient. No manual messing around on the device.

Edit: you should not have written "series" in the collections column field, if that's what you did. Kobo readers handle the series info separately. That bit in the wiki is out of date.

[Liudprand]

Thanks for this.

I'd love for Calibre to manage my collections - if I could be sure that it won't wipe out hours of work I did without so much as a warning dialogue!

"Edit: you should not have written "series" in the collections column field, if that's what you did. Kobo readers handle the series info separately. That bit in the wiki is out of date."

OK. So are there instructions for this somewhere that *aren't* out of date?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Liudprand

Thanks for this.

I'd love for Calibre to manage my collections - if I could be sure that it won't wipe out hours of work I did without so much as a warning dialogue!

"Edit: you should not have written "series" in the collections column field, if that's what you did. Kobo readers handle the series info separately. That bit in the wiki is out of date."

OK. So are there instructions for this somewhere that *aren't* out of date?

You mean apart from my post? That did tell you what to do. And it also pointed to a longer guide which does have some problems but I did explicitly state which bits to skip.

The collection management did do what you told it to do. You told it to use the series column as the source for collections. The driver will then move all books on the device that are in the library to collections with the series name. And remove them from any collections that do not match those names. This is the designed behaviour and prompting for that change is not a sensible thing to do. Potentially there a hundreds of changes and prompting for each, or prompting once for all is not sensible. Or even possible from where the changes are being made.

There is a method to fetch collections from the device to a column in calibre. This is part of the Kobo Utilities plugin. The function is there and described in the help. It was not been mentioned as there was no previous indication from you that this was something you want.

The collection management is simple. Decide what column in calibre contains what you want to create collections from, and put that in the driver configuration. Then connect the device. Any column can be used, but, some make more sense than others (title would be silly, date modified would as well, published date is probably not good, but published year might be). And the collection management will always change the collections the books are in to match what the collection columns have for values. But, there is an option to ignore specifically named collections on the device and not make changes to them.

As to your H2O not having this problem, that is not true. This is identical for all Kobo devices. For the collection management and metadata updating, here is no distinction between devices for any of the Kobo devices. Only the cover size generated by driver, if configured, is different between the devices. If you have seen different behaviour between the devices, then it is something you have done. And as you had not configured collections before, then you would not have had these problems. If it was something else, then state what it is so we can sort out what is going on.

[Liudprand]

Thanks, davidfor, for this very lengthy response.

(One quick, unrelated query about this forum: The little box next to "Quote message in reply?" is greyed out, so I can't easily quote chunks of your post. Is there something I need to do to activate this function?)

Just to clarify one thing: the problem I was talking about, which my H2O didn't (still doesn't) have relates to my Libra 2 repeatedly, and frequently, freezing. In fact it's going to be replaced, becuase Kobo have agreed it's a fault. I didn't mean that I'd used it successfully to handle collections information.

As to the rest, it's all very informative - thanks. Without going through it piece by piece, though, one thing seems to be clear; or, rather, I'd be grateful if you could confirm it for me either way. Namely, the Collections functionality on Kobo devices allows books to belong to several different collections. For example, a book on the Vietnam War might be in a collection titled "US Politics" and another one titled "War" - in fact, the possibilities are endless, obviously: "Southeast Asia", "Cold War", etc. etc. The column-based functionality you're explaining doesn't seem as if it would be able to achieve that.

On the other hand, perhaps that's not the case - becuase you say Calibre can draw collections information from the settings on a Kobo device - and that's the way my H2O is set up, for example.

If you could clarify that one point for me, I would, as ever, be very grateful. Because if Calibre can't work with "overlapping" collections, then it won't be of any use to me for that purpose.

Liudprand

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by Liudprand

Namely, the Collections functionality on Kobo devices allows books to belong to several different collections. For example, a book on the Vietnam War might be in a collection titled "US Politics" and another one titled "War" - in fact, the possibilities are endless, obviously: "Southeast Asia", "Cold War", etc. etc. The column-based functionality you're explaining doesn't seem as if it would be able to achieve that.

On the other hand, perhaps that's not the case - becuase you say Calibre can draw collections information from the settings on a Kobo device - and that's the way my H2O is set up, for example.

If you could clarify that one point for me, I would, as ever, be very grateful. Because if Calibre can't work with "overlapping" collections, then it won't be of any use to me for that purpose.

Liudprand

I'm not davidfor but I use this functionality a lot, so I think I can explain it. A book can be in different collections and you define in the plugin the columns that you want to convert in collections. So, as you can have more than one, it can be in more than one collection. For example, my setting for collections are: #sek,#dek,#tbr_col