So Marvin’s Gone!

[zebradude]

Ah, Im glad I had stumbled on. this thread. I have all 3 types of Marvin and have recovered Marvin 3, Marvin SxS to my new iPhone 15 Pro Max and they are running well....cool.

Ps. I have been a iMazing user from way back and I have a number of backups from my old iPhone 13 Pro Max that I had traded in.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

If they are showing “how many pages REMAINING” then it would show 9…

But I’m done with this argument. I give you permission to have the last word… just remember, no matter what you say, you are still wrong.

I know I'm correct and you are the one that's wrong. 9 pages in a chapter is wrong when there are 10 pages.

[Clark G. Flipper]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I know I'm correct and you are the one that's wrong. 9 pages in a chapter is wrong when there are 10 pages.

Stop it.

[denisea]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

If you have a backup you can restore your device. Just because it isn’t on the store doesn’t mean you can’t use it. It hasn’t been updated in a while but it still works. I’m actually using it now…

i have Marvin on my ipad mini and ipad pro 4th edition and am desperately trying to migrate it over to my new ipad pro. can you link to the steps—even when i restore from a backup on my mac it’s transfers the app store link not the ipa.

[Turtle91]

There’s a video link on page 5 of this thread… followed by lots of discussion. On page 17 I put a summary list of steps.

[Bayaz]

Hello guys,

So earlier today, I discovered that Marvin 3 disappeared from my "new" phone. It's actually a replacement iPhone 12 Pro Max from my carrier because I busted the back on it.

Hopefully there are some other obsessive readers here, because I literally let out a scream while I was driving. Man was I upset.

But then I found this thread... I'm quite grateful for the YouTube video because I was able to "copy" Marvin 3 from my iPad to my iPhone using the instructions.

But I feel like such a fool for not backing up Marvin before getting rid of the old phone. I have a backup but it's like a year and a half old and I've added numerous free ebooks and ones I purchased since then.

So this is a real longshot. I did a full iCloud backup of my phone before setting up the new one. Is there any way to restore my Marvin 3 library from my iCloud backup into the newly created Marvin 3 app on my iPhone?

Thanks again for the thread! I'm sure I'll have lots to discuss with other book fanatics however here are some of my favorites:

Riftwar by Raymond E. Feist
Red Rising
The First Law trilogy (and everything else) by Joe Abercrombie

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Bayaz

Hello guys,

So earlier today, I discovered that Marvin 3 disappeared from my "new" phone. It's actually a replacement iPhone 12 Pro Max from my carrier because I busted the back on it.

Hopefully there are some other obsessive readers here, because I literally let out a scream while I was driving. Man was I upset.

But then I found this thread... I'm quite grateful for the YouTube video because I was able to "copy" Marvin 3 from my iPad to my iPhone using the instructions.

But I feel like such a fool for not backing up Marvin before getting rid of the old phone. I have a backup but it's like a year and a half old and I've added numerous free ebooks and ones I purchased since then.

So this is a real longshot. I did a full iCloud backup of my phone before setting up the new one. Is there any way to restore my Marvin 3 library from my iCloud backup into the newly created Marvin 3 app on my iPhone?

Thanks again for the thread! I'm sure I'll have lots to discuss with other book fanatics however here are some of my favorites:

Riftwar by Raymond E. Feist
Red Rising
The First Law trilogy (and everything else) by Joe Abercrombie

Even if you backed up your old phone, you'd not get Marvin back by restoring the backup. An iPhone backup stores the app's data and the name of the app. When you restore, the backup process downloads the app from the app store and then restores the app's data. If the app is no longer in the app store, you won't be able to restore the app.

[Bayaz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Even if you backed up your old phone, you'd not get Marvin back by restoring the backup. An iPhone backup stores the app's data and the name of the app. When you restore, the backup process downloads the app from the app store and then restores the app's data. If the app is no longer in the app store, you won't be able to restore the app.

Hey thank you my friend. It's my own stupid fault for trusting Apple's migration functionality implicitly and not checking that each app came over perfectly.

I have to say, it annoys me that the company who made this App didn't communicate with the users before leaving the App store. I bought the app and the one before that and I get what people are saying in this thread about how it costs money to host, pay developers, etc. But if they explained that and said "hey, it's going to be $5 a month, or $49.99 lifetime" or whatever, then at least we'd have had the option to pay for it. I personally would've much rather done that than lose my book collection!

[Turtle91]

Originally Posted by Bayaz

Hey thank you my friend. It's my own stupid fault for trusting Apple's migration functionality implicitly and not checking that each app came over perfectly.

I have to say, it annoys me that the company who made this App didn't communicate with the users before leaving the App store. I bought the app and the one before that and I get what people are saying in this thread about how it costs money to host, pay developers, etc. But if they explained that and said "hey, it's going to be $5 a month, or $49.99 lifetime" or whatever, then at least we'd have had the option to pay for it. I personally would've much rather done that than lose my book collection!

1st) welcome to MR!

B) JSWolf is not entirely correct. As you found out by following the instructions listed above, you can re-install Marvin from a backup.

III) If you can access the actual backup file - copy it to your desktop or something - then, yes, you can access the data (books) from the app.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Bayaz

Hey thank you my friend. It's my own stupid fault for trusting Apple's migration functionality implicitly and not checking that each app came over perfectly.

I have to say, it annoys me that the company who made this App didn't communicate with the users before leaving the App store. I bought the app and the one before that and I get what people are saying in this thread about how it costs money to host, pay developers, etc. But if they explained that and said "hey, it's going to be $5 a month, or $49.99 lifetime" or whatever, then at least we'd have had the option to pay for it. I personally would've much rather done that than lose my book collection!

Technically, the developer just stopped updating the app.

It’s Apple who removed the Marvin from the App Store for being abandonware. Kinda wish Apple would’ve just left it alone bugs and all.

I’ve been reading more comics right now so I haven’t been using Marvin (or other ebook readers) much. So far though, BookFusion is shaping up to be a decent alternative and the developer is quite active. I’m on the lowest subscription tier for that. Might go higher to show support if I end up using it more.

[Turtle91]

FYI: Marvin can read comics too… .cbz files (I think)

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Turtle91

FYI: Marvin can read comics too… .cbz files (I think)

I've been reading purchased comics from Comixology (well, Kindle now).

Besides, I prefer ComicGlass over Marvin for DRM-free comics. For me, folders work much better for organizing those. I can't really be bothered to add my comics to Calibre so they have proper series tags, etc.

[YRead]

Wow! Thanks to all on this thread for the insights on how to restore Marvin 3 and all the books from my last backup. I was able to do so using the Imazing app in Trial mode. Marvin 3 was fully restored along with all the books in the library. Awesome!

I got in this situation because of the bug in Apple iTunes that may brick your iOS device if you update your AS in iTunes while connected by USB. Usually I update OTA, but in this case I updated in response to a prompt from iTunes after doing a regular backup by USB. I've done this before with no problem, but this time it bricked my iPad to the point where only a full Restore brought it back to life. I never heard of this bug but it's a thing - just search on it. So beware of updating by cable via iTunes. At any rate, as many have pointed out, if you reset and restore from backup, any apps no longer in the App Store get nuked. Not a happy day, as reading through Marvin is something I do for hours a day.

I thought all was lost so I started to look at alternative readers. We have a large always-on Calibre library content server using OPDS shared among 6-8 family members. I found two readers I thought were contenders for our situation.

PocketBook Reader says it does OPDS, and seems to have a large following. However, I tried many different ways and combinations and I could not get it to connect to OPDS. I know OPDS is working because I can connect to it natively through the IP, and now that Marvin is restored it connects fine too. Documentation on OPDS for PocketBook is minimal at best, and the one post I found in the app reviews on connecting to OPDS didn't work. So scrape that off the table.

BookFusion is emerging and has a lot of fans. They are improving and updating rapidly and it looks quite promising.
Pros:
* The syncing across devices and platforms is attractive - I think Marvin had something like it but I never tried it. When I thought about it, the idea of having a sync'd Kindle Paperwhite for the bedroom (easier on your eyes) and going out for hikes and lunches would be very nice (more later). Also reading a sync'd book on the web could be useful, particularly for tech work. The ability to read multiple formats on the one reader would be great - currently I flip back and forth between Marvin for ePub and GoodReader for PDF.
Cons:
* It's a subscription model. While I don't mind paying a reasonable fee to support staff and development, all too often rentals turn into an unreasonable fee once they get you hooked. They often decrease level benefits to push you into higher levels.
* No OPDS. They provide a Calibre plugin which works nicely. However the plugin is tied to an API key specific to your account. If my family members all have their own BookFusion account, I don't see how they would get their books off our Calibre content server. To boot, only two of us get their books off Calibre directly. The others login to the Calibre native OPDS IP, and download the books to their reader that way. Without OPDS, those members have no way to load into BookFusion, and the two of us on the home network cannot have separate accounts.
* It turns out Kindle is load only, book reading progress on Kindle Paperwhite is not sync'd across platforms.
* Lack of sharing options. Every time I finish a book on Marvin, I send myself an email to remind me to update my "Read on" column in Calibre. You can also send emails to folks about a book you're reading, even send them the book. No sharing options in BookFusion.
* Doesn't have same access to Calibre columns that Marvin had - this was a nice feature you can use to find books to read next.
* Marvin has the ability to convert ebook to uniform formatting in case of strange native formatting.
* There's some other minor features Marvin has that BookFusion is missing, but the team there seem energized and I think they'll be added as they proceed onward.
The big obstacles for me are the lack of OPDS and the lack of syncing to Kindle. If they add those features I think I would jump in. It is shaping up to be a feature-rich app, and after all Marvin is apparently deserted and at some point we need to support a viable provider.

Anyway, the pressure is off for me personally because of the wonderful contributors here who found a way for Marvin to say "I'm not dead yet!"

[JSWolf]

Marvin was seriously buggy. When you went to highlight something, you could not see what you were doing. So unless the author was going to fix that, it had to go.

[Turtle91]

I have no issues seeing what I’m highlighting…??