Calibre on OneDrive Disaster - Library Empty After Opening, All Books "Missing"

[GiuseppeB67]

Hi everyone,

I think I made a critical mistake with my Calibre setup and now I'm in a panic. For convenience, I decided to store my entire Calibre library folder on Microsoft OneDrive, thinking it would be a good way to sync and back up my collection.

Today, I opened Calibre, and it's showing an empty library. The interface opens normally, but it finds zero books. The library manager still points to the OneDrive folder, but Calibre acts like it's empty.

I believe OneDrive's "Files On-Demand" feature or some sync conflict might be the culprit. The files seem to be in the cloud, but Calibre isn't recognizing them.

Has anyone else experienced this? What can I do to recover my library and fix this? I desperately need to get my books back and understand the correct way to set this up to avoid it in the future.

Thank you for any help you can offer!

[Sirtel]

First, close calibre and download all your files from OneDrive - make sure they're locally available, not cloud-only. Then stop OneDrive, open calibre again and check if calibre can see your books now.

Calibre cannot work with on-demand/cloud-only files. It needs the files to be local.

[JSWolf]

Once you download your library from OneDrive to a local directory, you should rebuild your library as the database could be corrupted.

[gbm]

This is why you should always at least read the FAQ's.
https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq...rked-drive-nas

Do not put your calibre library on a networked drive.

A filesystem is a complex beast. Most network filesystems lack various filesystem features that calibre uses. Some don’t support file locking, some don’t support hardlinking, some are just flaky. Additionally, calibre is a single user application, if you accidentally run two copies of calibre on the same networked library, bad things will happen. Finally, different OSes impose different limitations on filesystems, so if you share your networked drive across OSes, once again, bad things will happen.

Some advice from a retired Field Engineer NEVER PUT YOUR personal files on a cloud drive.

That said go to your one drive and copy you calibre library to local drive and point calibre to the local library, then run library maintenance.

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

bernie

Originally Posted by GiuseppeB67

Hi everyone,

I think I made a critical mistake with my Calibre setup and now I'm in a panic. For convenience, I decided to store my entire Calibre library folder on Microsoft OneDrive, thinking it would be a good way to sync and back up my collection.

Today, I opened Calibre, and it's showing an empty library. The interface opens normally, but it finds zero books. The library manager still points to the OneDrive folder, but Calibre acts like it's empty.

I believe OneDrive's "Files On-Demand" feature or some sync conflict might be the culprit. The files seem to be in the cloud, but Calibre isn't recognizing them.

Has anyone else experienced this? What can I do to recover my library and fix this? I desperately need to get my books back and understand the correct way to set this up to avoid it in the future.

Thank you for any help you can offer!

[JSWolf]

OneDrive is not a networked drive even though you can treat it as such using rclone & winfsp

[GiuseppeB67]

Thank you all of you for your answers. I know, I make a mistake. To rebuild it will take days... (more than 19.000 epubs...). My hope was to try to have back my library and once I got it back, to put on local support forever... Again: thank you for your time
Giuseppe

[rantanplan]

Originally Posted by GiuseppeB67

more than 19.000 epubs...

Wow, how would you even read that in a lifetime

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by GiuseppeB67

Thank you all of you for your answers. I know, I make a mistake. To rebuild it will take days... (more than 19.000 epubs...). My hope was to try to have back my library and once I got it back, to put on local support forever... Again: thank you for your time
Giuseppe

If the database is ok, then it's just a matter of moving your library to a local drive and point calibre to it. It might not be necessary to rebuild at all.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

Wow, how would you even read that in a lifetime

You don't. You treat it as a real library - to browse at will and select something you want to read.

I have more than that and of course I won't be able to read even a third or fourth of it in my lifetime. Unless someone invents a non-aging treatment or something like that... who knows...

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

OneDrive is not a networked drive even though you can treat it as such using rclone & winfsp

Sure it is. MS treats "My Documents" similarly with accounts using OneDrive as accounts on a Domain Controller with a Roaming Profile.

Don't save ANYTHING in MyDocuments if you also have an MS Account in the Cloud (and maybe Windows 11 on new installs can only have "Cloud Accounts"), or there is a local Domain Controller on the LAN / WAN that you log into to get access to your Windows.

Cloud Storage is just someone else's server, so it's always a kind of Network drive usually with less security, privacy and compatibility than anything on your own local network.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Sure it is. MS treats "My Documents" similarly with accounts using OneDrive as accounts on a Domain Controller with a Roaming Profile.

Don't save ANYTHING in MyDocuments if you also have an MS Account in the Cloud (and maybe Windows 11 on new installs can only have "Cloud Accounts"), or there is a local Domain Controller on the LAN / WAN that you log into to get access to your Windows.

Cloud Storage is just someone else's server, so it's always a kind of Network drive usually with less security, privacy and compatibility than anything on your own local network.

It's entirely possible to disable OneDrive even on Windows 11. Yes, I do have a MS account and I'm using it. No, OneDrive is not working on my computers, because I don't allow it to start with Windows. I don't use OneDrive at all.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

You don't. You treat it as a real library - to browse at will and select something you want to read.

Exactly!

Something to suit the mood. Or even research. My Calibre library has non-fiction too.

Sometimes you need to dip into fiction for research. The Calibre Full Text Search on say selected collection, series or author is great.

[DNSB]

For the 17,500 books currently in my library, about 15,000 are fiction which I have read. The remaining 2,500 are non-fiction. A good chunk of that is reference manuals, some of which I never used but keep around just in case. After all, you never know when you might need to work on a Juniper QFX switch again.

[dizzy274]

Originally Posted by GiuseppeB67

Hi everyone,

I think I made a critical mistake with my Calibre setup and now I'm in a panic. For convenience, I decided to store my entire Calibre library folder on Microsoft OneDrive, thinking it would be a good way to sync and back up my collection.

Today, I opened Calibre, and it's showing an empty library. The interface opens normally, but it finds zero books. The library manager still points to the OneDrive folder, but Calibre acts like it's empty.

I believe OneDrive's "Files On-Demand" feature or some sync conflict might be the culprit. The files seem to be in the cloud, but Calibre isn't recognizing them.

Has anyone else experienced this? What can I do to recover my library and fix this? I desperately need to get my books back and understand the correct way to set this up to avoid it in the future.

Thank you for any help you can offer!

Are you sure that OneDrive.exe is running? That would give you the symptoms you describe. I don't know anything about OneDrive and using it for a Calibre Library, but that would be what I'd expect to happen if it hadn't run at startup.

Best Regards

Ian.