Pocket Book Sync Koreader book progress with library

[neil_swann80]

Originally Posted by xanderx

The only issue for me now is that if I force open a book with PBreader, it sticks on the main screen until I force it open with the koReader.

Have you set KOReader as the default in the settings menu for the ebook formats you use?
Settings (cog icon)>Device>Associate file extensions

You may also want to delete the handlers.cfg file from your PocketBook filesystem that stores the app which last opened a book:
/mnt/ext1/system/config/handlers.cfg
This config file overrides default app file extension settings. The system will create a new version of this file every time you manually long-press and "open with" on a book.
(You may need to enable the visibility of hidden items to see the system directory on your computer)

[xanderx]

Originally Posted by neil_swann80

Have you set KOReader as the default in the settings menu for the ebook formats you use?
Settings (cog icon)>Device>Associate file extensions

Yes I have asssociated all the extentions with the KOReader.

Originally Posted by neil_swann80

You may also want to delete the handlers.cfg file from your PocketBook filesystem that stores the app which last opened a book:
/mnt/ext1/system/config/handlers.cfg

I found the file, however there not much in it: tree book that I have opened before all associated with the KOReader

The KOReader has crashed again on me. It appears that the log files are updated in the end of file, so I was mistaken - it was crashing all this time after all. and the log stuck again. The only solution for now that I see manually deleting the log. And it is crashing all the time and that is why it sticks. It is crashing when I press home button on the device and also when I am exiting the KOReader. And turning off the pocketbooksync plugin does not change anything.

So it seems that there is some compatibility issue between the KOReader and my device. Thank you very much for your help and sorry for waisting your time. Hopefully with the next version the KOReader team will fix the issue.

[neil_swann80]

Originally Posted by xanderx

So it seems that there is some compatibility issue between the KOReader and my device. Thank you very much for your help and sorry for wasting your time. Hopefully with the next version the KOReader team will fix the issue.

It's never wasted time trying to help someone!

Perhaps try an older version of KOReader or a fresh install of the latest version with any new plugins removed etc.

[xanderx]

Originally Posted by neil_swann80

It's never wasted time trying to help someone!

Perhaps try an older version of KOReader or a fresh install of the latest version with any new plugins removed etc.

Thank you very much! If all the people out there had your attitute, the world would be a much better place!

I have already tried a fresh install with no luck. I will try the older versions of the KOReader per you suggestions. However I do not think that I have a lot of options, since my device came out in the end of 2023 and the AFAIK, 2024.01 is the first version that officially supports my device, which makes it only other available option.

Thank you very much once more!

[liskin]

Originally Posted by xanderx

I had currentPageUpdate app V 0.5.1 installed from GitHub page.
…
Now everything works fine, which is strange, considering the fact that installing plugin only did nothing for me at all at the beginning until I installed currentPageUpdate app.

You absolutely shouldn't be using currentPageUpdate in 2024. There's a well maintained modern plugin for syncing progress with PocketBook here: https://github.com/ckilb/pocketbooksync.koplugin

Can [name]jrw174[/name] please update the first post so that we don't confuse users into using an unmaintained hack?

[liskin]

Originally Posted by reuerendo

Thank you The progress bar reaches 100%. Now using koreader is almost no different from the native reader. Except for one thing.

If you open a book but do not read it (by accident, for example), the library will say “0% read”. And this message cannot be reset.

If you repeat the same steps with the native PocketBook reader, there will be no message in library. It only appears if you scroll through at least one page. And disappears if you return to the first page (book cover)

Originally Posted by liskin

I suppose we could skip updating the progress when the current page is the first one (the cover). But it's not the behaviour I personally want, so it'll probably be best if you tweak that yourself. :-)

I dug a bit further into this today to try to find out what exactly does PBReader do. It's really strange actually.

You said the progress bar appears if you scroll through at least one page, but that's not the behaviour I'm seeing—quite often I need to scroll through several, it almost seems like everything until what

<guide><reference type="text" … /></guide>

refers to is considered "page 0".

But then it also seems that PBReader considers cpage zero-based. If you're on page 5 it sets cpage to 4. But then, if you're on page 60 out of 62, it stores 58. And then 61 is 59, first half of 62 is 60, and when you reach the end it's suddenly 62. It's a bit bizarre. And this behaviour is with an ordinary book with no hidden flows…

We don't really need to replicate that behaviour, though. All we need is to use cpage=0 for the title page (to hide the progress bar), cpage=npage for when the book is finished, and then we can probably map pages 2–(npage-1) to 1–(npage-1) to make the progress bar go smoothly at the beginning of the book (there'd be a slight jump if we went straight from 0 to 2).

I'll implement this and push it to the hidden flows PR at https://github.com/ckilb/pocketbooks...plugin/pull/10

[iupiter]

Originally Posted by neil_swann80

Just so we're clear... it should only be updating the progress bar under the books on your home screen...

Why exactly is that?
Does the official Pocketbook Reader just ignore the progress saved in the database?

[neil_swann80]

Originally Posted by iupiter

Why exactly is that?
Does the official Pocketbook Reader just ignore the progress saved in the database?

Yes, PBReader has temp files of its own that store its progress. The progress value in the database is still used by Pocketbook for info and progress bars on the home and library view pages however.

Syncing progress between PBReader and KOReader would be quite tricky as font type/size differences change where pages start and end; the progress value for one app could refer to a position that's way off in the other.

[liskin]

Originally Posted by neil_swann80

Yes, PBReader has temp files of its own that store its progress. The progress value in the database is still used by Pocketbook for info and progress bars on the home and library view pages however.

Syncing progress between PBReader and KOReader would be quite tricky as font type/size differences change where pages start and end; the progress value for one app could refer to a position that's way off in the other.

I don't think PBReader actually has its own "temp" files. There is a position column in the books_settings database which seems that it serves the purpose of saving PBReader's position. This column seems to store the position as a reference to a specific location in epub, as a sort of path through the epub elements, which makes it font-size-agnostic.

So we could in theory reverse engineer how exactly that position is encoded and try to translate it back and forth to how KOReader stores the last read position, but I don't think it's worth the effort. Certainly not worth the effort for me, as I almost never use PBReader, and absolutely never use both PBReader and KOReader for the same book.

[neil_swann80]

Originally Posted by liskin

I don't think PBReader actually has its own "temp" files. There is a position column in the books_settings database which seems that it serves the purpose of saving PBReader's position. This column seems to store the position as a reference to a specific location in epub, as a sort of path through the epub elements, which makes it font-size-agnostic.

So we could in theory reverse engineer how exactly that position is encoded and try to translate it back and forth to how KOReader stores the last read position, but I don't think it's worth the effort. Certainly not worth the effort for me, as I almost never use PBReader, and absolutely never use both PBReader and KOReader for the same book.

Yep, you're correct (I had to check!). That's bizarre... I'm either going crazy or confusing pocketbooks with one of my old ereaders.

But I agree, too much hassle to investigate as the majority of people stick to their preferred reader app.

[xanderx]

Originally Posted by liskin

There's a well maintained modern plugin for syncing progress with PocketBook here: https://github.com/ckilb/pocketbooksync.koplugin

Thank you very much! I am using the latest version of koreader with the updated pligin from the link you've provided and everything works like a charm! No sticky books at all! Additionally I removed assosiation in koreader with .log files, so that chash.log does not show up on the homescreen at all now. I've been using my PB for couple of weeks not without any issues whatsoever!

[iupiter]

Originally Posted by liskin

So we could in theory reverse engineer how exactly that position is encoded and try to translate it back and forth to how KOReader stores the last read position, but I don't think it's worth the effort. Certainly not worth the effort for me, as I almost never use PBReader, and absolutely never use both PBReader and KOReader for the same book.

It may not be useful for the reader itself, but Pocketbook Cloud (when it's not to buggy) syncs the progress across it's devices, which could come in handy.

[liskin]

Originally Posted by iupiter

Pocketbook Cloud (when it's not to buggy) syncs the progress across it's devices, which could come in handy.

lol, yeah, I tried that, and I never managed to observe the "not too buggy" situation. Reliability was not its strong characteristic. Luckily we have KOReader and its progress sync works a bit better (and it also sync the reading statistics!).

[certciv]

Originally Posted by neil_swann80

For the most recent profile friendly version of the plugin see attached...

With SH_IVTOOLS installed, this worked right out of the box on an Era. Thanks so much for sharing. And thank you jrw174, komary, and everyone else that contributed.

This makes KOReader feel very well integrated with PocketBook.