Cover Art not Showing in Calibre

[Trester99]

I've been using Calibre several years now, definitely not a power user. My primary use of the program is to build collections of books by specific authors. I use Calibre to update meta-data, convert files (mostly epub) and also load some files to my kindle for reading.

For whatever reason, Calibre will no longer display any book covers in the side panel or the Layout's cover grid. All books show the blue default cover from Calibre.

What I have tried so far:
1. Attempted to Google the issue, everything that I found pertained to cover art not showing in Kindle. I did see a bug fix in the new releases that mentioned book covers displaying caused by the cache. I couldn't find any details for the fix though.
2. I have tried loading several hundred books of various formats (known retail versions), none of the covers displayed.
3. I did try updating the meta-data covers for several books, the covers did show up correctly in Calibre.
4. I un-installed Calibre and the re-installed the latest version, no changes.

Any guidance would be appreciated!

[Karellen]

Do you mean you have lost all the covers from your library, or that any new books you add no covers are downloaded but existing covers are ok?

[Trester99]

I don't really use Calibre as a library, just to build collections. So the books that I am adding is only temporary. When I finish building the collection, I save the books to Windows file sub-directories and delete the Calibre entries. My source of books has always worked, until recently.

[Comfy.n]

Are you sure you have the option "Read metadata from file contents" on Preferences -> Adding Books, checked? See:

[Trester99]

A little better clarification:

Using file explorer, I will drop books for an author into Calibre. Until recently, Calibre has always displayed covers for the books in the side panel without me doing any meta-data manipulation. Something has changed that I will see no covers when importing the books.

[Trester99]

I use that option very often. But most of the time I rename the book using Excel and file explorer to the naming convention that I use for my books. So when I import the renamed books into Calibre, I want Calibre to assign the proper naming convention using my structure.

[Trester99]

So I just tried checking that option and importing some books, and the covers do show.

[Trester99]

I am at a loss for words. Not sure why I would lose the association of the covers? So is there any way to get Calibre to rename the books to my format, and retain the cover association?

[Comfy.n]

Originally Posted by Trester99

I am at a loss for words. Not sure why I would lose the association of the covers? So is there any way to get Calibre to rename the books to my format, and retain the cover association?

If you add the books using "read metadata from filenames", covers can be set later using Edit Metadata, see the option at mouse cursor position:



This has been discussed recently, though I can't find the thread atm. There is no way to add the covers contained in the e-book files if reading metadata from filenames. That's expected behaviour

[Trester99]

"expected behaviour" for everyone but me. LOL! I do understand now, and thank you so much!!!

[Comfy.n]

note that I've changed the attached screencap previously. the option in this case should be "Set from e-book files"

you're welcome

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Trester99

I am at a loss for words. Not sure why I would lose the association of the covers? So is there any way to get Calibre to rename the books to my format, and retain the cover association?

The same answer that people get: do not muck with the books in the calibre library. Treat it as black box from which you export to disk or to an ereader device. The file name is irrelevant to the library, the metadata stored in calibre's database is.