ancient kobo refurb wont show some books? help!

[xanrot]

Hi!

I recently bought and "refurbished" an old Kobo Wifi N647. DIYed some replacement buttons, put in a new microSD with a new disk image and was able to get some books onto it. It's been mostly working great, and I've really been enjoying reading on it. The issue I'm having is that some books I've tried to add just don't show up. I've tried using Calibre to load the books instead of drag-and-dropping, but there are still books that just wont appear in my library. The (many) affected files are .epub, they open fine on my computer, they just don't appear on my Kobo. I'd really love to have access to my entire library instead of just the seemingly random selection of titles my device decides to let me use.

I know I am working with a very wonky relic here and issues are to be expected, but I'm not currently in a financial place to upgrade and I love to solve a problem... so I'm wondering/hoping maybe someone here can give me some direction or clarity as to whats going on and whether there's anything I can try to do about it.

Thanks!

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by xanrot

I know I am working with a very wonky relic here and issues are to be expected, but I'm not currently in a financial place to upgrade and I love to solve a problem... so I'm wondering/hoping maybe someone here can give me some direction or clarity as to whats going on and whether there's anything I can try to do about it.

I just ran into this problem a couple weeks ago and I'm embarrassed to admit I can't remember exactly what I did to fix it, but I think all it took was a reset under Settings -> Advanced.

You will regain the books that came with the Kobo Wireless but I think you'll have to reload any books you've added.

(But you might want to wait for someone more knowledgeable on this subject to confirm this "fix." Or have a better solution, or a reason not to do this.)

[xanrot]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I just ran into this problem a couple weeks ago and I'm embarrassed to admit I can't remember exactly what I did to fix it, but I think all it took was a reset under Settings -> Advanced.

You will regain the books that came with the Kobo Wireless but I think you'll have to reload any books you've added.

Thanks so much for the reply!

I just gave this a try and when going to reload my books, Calibre gave me this error when connecting to my Kobo?

calibre, version 7.12.0
ERROR: Error: Error communicating with device

tuple indices must be integers or slices, not str

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre/gui2/device.py", line 111, in run
File "calibre/gui2/device.py", line 565, in _books
File "calibre/devices/kobo/driver.py", line 462, in books
File "calibre/devices/kobo/driver.py", line 1016, in sync_booklists
File "calibre/devices/kobo/driver.py", line 954, in update_device_database_collections
File "calibre/devices/kobo/driver.py", line 835, in set_readstatus
TypeError: tuple indices must be integers or slices, not str

I loaded stuff up through Calibre anyway and still the same books are missing. They appear on the internal memory when I look via my computer, but not in my library/documents on the Kobo itself.

I don't really understand what the error is about, maybe the error can point us in the right direction? Or maybe it's a whole other thing haha who knows... hoping someone out there has an idea!

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by xanrot

Thanks so much for the reply!

I just gave this a try and when going to reload my books, Calibre gave me this error when connecting to my Kobo?
[INDENT]calibre, version 7.12.0
ERROR: Error: Error communicating with device

tuple indices must be integers or slices, not str...

I just tested mine. I got the same error in Calibre as you did, so I just bypassed Calibre and dragged the book (full folder) to the root directory of my Kobo Wireless. When I unplugged the cable, I got a message (something about processing new content) and I was able to read it.

Okay... on my system (at least) I found that, if I connected the Kobo Wireless first, and then started Calibre that it would not give me the error and I could use Calibre to move books over to the Kobo Wireless. I tested this a couple times. Start Calibre, then connect the Kobo to the computer, I would get the error. Connect first, make sure I could see the Kobo, then start Calibre, no error.

That said, some of the books I moved over got the green check mark (showed in Calibre), and some didn't. So it's not working 100%. (But, either way, the books are there and readable.)

Also, I have to mention, I'm currently using Calibre 6.17 on Linux Mint, so that might make a difference.

I would try dragging the books over to the Kobo Wireless, but it's possible that your Kobo Wireless has an issue that mine doesn't have.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by xanrot

Thanks so much for the reply!

I just gave this a try and when going to reload my books, Calibre gave me this error when connecting to my Kobo?

calibre, version 7.12.0
ERROR: Error: Error communicating with device

tuple indices must be integers or slices, not str

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre/gui2/device.py", line 111, in run
File "calibre/gui2/device.py", line 565, in _books
File "calibre/devices/kobo/driver.py", line 462, in books
File "calibre/devices/kobo/driver.py", line 1016, in sync_booklists
File "calibre/devices/kobo/driver.py", line 954, in update_device_database_collections
File "calibre/devices/kobo/driver.py", line 835, in set_readstatus
TypeError: tuple indices must be integers or slices, not str

I loaded stuff up through Calibre anyway and still the same books are missing. They appear on the internal memory when I look via my computer, but not in my library/documents on the Kobo itself.

I don't really understand what the error is about, maybe the error can point us in the right direction? Or maybe it's a whole other thing haha who knows... hoping someone out there has an idea!

What would be interesting is to see what happens with a much older version of Calibre.. If on Windows try a vanilla install of an old version of Calibre Portable; maybe 3.48. Don't install any plugins or use your existing calibre library; just add a few books to the new temporary library and see what happens. I believe the WiFi model uses a different driver from the Touch and other models; however both drivers are in the same calibre device driver file.

Yep... The legacy driver goes to about line 1386 in driver.py; the newer driver is lines 1388 to 4155.

Sent from my Pixel 7a using Tapatalk

[xanrot]

Originally Posted by PeterT

What would be interesting is to see what happens with a much older version of Calibre.. If on Windows try a vanilla install of an old version of Calibre Portable; maybe 3.48. Don't install any plugins or use your existing calibre library; just add a few books to the new temporary library and see what happens. I believe the WiFi model uses a different driver from the Touch and other models; however both drivers are in the same calibre device driver file.

Yep... The legacy driver goes to about line 1386 in driver.py; the newer driver is lines 1388 to 4155.

Sent from my Pixel 7a using Tapatalk

i'm on mac but i was able to install 3.48 and while i still got some kind of error message at some point, the books are all there now!! thanks so much, i really appreciate it!