Cannot download purchased comics from My Books

[Pjama]

After spending a frustrating day or so trying to figure out why I could not set up permissions for my new Kobo Libra Colour, I finally noticed this on the kobo website.

"Note: The Kobo Desktop app is not compatible with Google Chromebooks, Kobo Libra Colour, Kobo Clara Colour, or Kobo Clara BW."

This, after I had set it up on my Mac, and was just about to try and set it up in Windows on my Parallels. All to try and fix a situation whereby two of my new Astérix books do not have download permissions activated in the dropdown on my books account page. (My other two newly purchased Astérix books work perfectly). [I have tried various different shop fronts as well, just in case, but no dice.]

I tried all the ways listed on here and elsewhere, to copy the file with the coded name and no extension and give it a kepub ext before importing into Calibre. Just to end up either with gobbledegook or just a simple statement that the book could not be opened.

I have OBOK which seemed to do nothing, ADE, which I cannot use for these two books. Etc. Even weirder is that the two books are not even physically present on my Kobo Colour - I can see them in Calibre, but when I try to import them, it tells me they are not actual books!

I can read them perfectly on my Kobo Colour, I just wanted to be able to reformat a smidge so I could set the zoom level like I can for PDFs.

Anyway, I'm going to try and see if I can fix something up using my Kobo Libra 2!

[Pjama]

Update - I really don't know how I get in these muddles - I checked one of the books again - it is called Astérix et Cleopatre. I checked it in the French store and it says it is not available in my region. And yet, a couple of weeks ago I purchased it in my region.

Another update: I don't think it's me that is crazy here! I was able to see the book in the US store (where I bought it), only after changing the store language to French! If I have the country set to USA and the language set to English, it is not seen at all.

Across all different permutations the book is not ever available to download.

The reason why I want to be able to download it is for a backup, and also to be able to add it to KO in future to get better pan and zoom settings. A huge other reason I want to download it is precisely because I cannot (!) download it!

[Pjama]

Further information - on all these books, at the bottom of the store page, it says:
"You can read this item using any of the following Kobo apps and devices:
TABLETS IOS ANDROID"

I tried to add this book to Calibre again from my Kobo Colour:

"The following books are virtual and cannot be added to the library"

What is going on?? Is this new, tougher DRM?

ETA: I found this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=258837, but it doesn't help as it goes back to the beginning of the loop and recommends downloading the pub from MyBooks - I have no download option available in MyBooks for this particular book. I will contact Kobo and ask if it can be fixed.

[Quoth]

I've used a Kobo for nearly 9 years and never felt the need for the Kobo Desktop. I also buy ebooks from Kobo.

The Kobo app for iOS or Android, AFAIK, is an alternate to having a real Kobo (Like Kindle App or Fire vs an eink Kindle), but the Kobo Desktop program is to "manage" an eink Kobo, so completely different.

BUT, I only ever buy what can be downloaded in a Browser as a file. Never direct via a Kobo or Kindle.

[Pjama]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I've used a Kobo for nearly 9 years and never felt the need for the Kobo Desktop. I also buy ebooks from Kobo.

The Kobo app for iOS or Android, AFAIK, is an alternate to having a real Kobo (Like Kindle App or Fire vs an eink Kindle), but the Kobo Desktop program is to "manage" an eink Kobo, so completely different.

BUT, I only ever buy what can be downloaded in a Browser as a file. Never direct via a Kobo or Kindle.

Very sensible. I was trying to buy from Kobo more to support them over Amazon. Literally the only reason I downloaded Kobo Desktop was to try to find another way to access two books which are not downloadable through My Books. It's not something I would ordinarily use, I had read I could access my books from there and add the file to Calibre and OBOK would de-DRM them, but it did not happen that way. I could have bought them through google play instead, but I suspect they may have the same constraints. I bought the books over the Kobo website, not direct from my Kobo (not sure if that would make a difference, but just noting it here). I'll look up the books in this series on google play and consider getting them from there next time, although I don't particularly want to give google any more money than I already have.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by Pjama

Further information - on all these books, at the bottom of the store page, it says:
"You can read this item using any of the following Kobo apps and devices:
TABLETS IOS ANDROID"

I tried to add this book to Calibre again from my Kobo Colour:

"The following books are virtual and cannot be added to the library"

What is going on?? Is this new, tougher DRM?

ETA: I found this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=258837, but it doesn't help as it goes back to the beginning of the loop and recommends downloading the pub from MyBooks - I have no download option available in MyBooks for this particular book. I will contact Kobo and ask if it can be fixed.

It looks like these books cannot be read in an ereader. I've found some books in the past like that.

[Aleron Ives]

Is there a way to tell that a book is not compatible with e-readers before you buy it? I would be pretty upset if I bought a book and then couldn't download it.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Is there a way to tell that a book is not compatible with e-readers before you buy it? I would be pretty upset if I bought a book and then couldn't download it.

You take a look at the bottom of the page. If you don't see ePub in the left hand column under eBook details (Détails du livre numérique) or Desktop & ereaders in the You can read this item section (Vous pouvez lire cet article avec l'une des applications), you are going to need to use a Kobo app to read the book.

[Pjama]

Well, thanks to this discussion, at least I can ensure I don’t buy any more books like this. Over the past month I have bought four French Asterix comics for my new Kobo Libra Colour. Two of them I can download the ACSMs for, so I can save my own copies in Calibre. The other two I can read on my Kobo Libra Colour, but cannot download the ASCMs to have my own copy in Calibre.

I just checked the Kobo Store page for the four comics, and the ones that don’t have a download option are listed as being only compatible with the apps. (Even though they are compatible with the KLC). It’s strange that all the comics are basically the exact same format, but there is this distinction between them. From now on, I’ll check this section at the foot of the Kobo store page for each book making any more purchases.

Final update to this saga: I checked again and the two that work are listed as EPUB3 (Adobe DRM), the two that don't are EPUB2! This information is not really upfront, and easy to miss.

Hopefully all this is helpful to someone else in future.

Maybe I should ask for the thread title to be changed to "Cannot download purchased comics from My Books"?

[Pjama]

A very happy ending to this - I deleted my OBOK plugin and installed it from a different source (I don't know whether it had been updated), and was able to successfully add the kepubs from my Kobo Desktop app and now I have the epubs safely in my Calibre Library. So, I guess I can carry on buying my Asterix comics from Kobo.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Pjama

Maybe I should ask for the thread title to be changed to "Cannot download purchased comics from My Books"?

Done.

[Pjama]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Done.

Thanks so much