Mini kepub not showing in Calibre

[paola]

I noticed something strange with a book recently: generally the non sideloaded kepub books (i.e. those downloaded straight from Kobo) show in Calibre as on the device, but for one book this does not happen. Is this normal? I generally use Joel's plugin, but I guess this is irrelevant as I am talking about "native" kepub files.

[BobC]

Is that in Device View or Library View ?

BobC

[paola]

Originally Posted by BobC

Is that in Device View or Library View ?

BobC

In the Library view I see the book in the library (ahem - I like to keep a backup of all my purchased books) but there is no "tick mark" for the book on the device, while in the device view the book does not show at all.

That is, I keep copies of all books in the library, regardless of where I have purchased them, but in the case of those bought on Kobo I do not sideload them, yet there is a "on device" tick mark for all of them (even if the backed up ones are in EPUB, so a different format). This has been the situation for all of them, with the exception of this one book. Everything works fine, but I just wonder whether something is wrong or could go wrong later, or is anyhow a symptom of something amiss.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by paola

In the Library view I see the book in the library (ahem - I like to keep a backup of all my purchased books) but there is no "tick mark" for the book on the device, while in the device view the book does not show at all.

I do the same thing. When the tick is missing it means that the book in the Calibre library has not matched to the kepub on the device in some way. Either the author or title is different in some way. If you change the author/title of the book in the Calibre library and then connect the device again it should match. (You can then change it back, if you want, and it should remain matched thereafter).

One trick is with titles of kepubs that have a dash. The part after the dash is not usually considered part of the title, it is stored as a seperat subtitle in the Kobo database. e.g. to match a kepub called "The Stone Canal - A Novel", the book in the Calibre library should probably just have the title "The Stone Canal".

Edit: I think the kepub should still show in the device library in calibre though, unless it is archived. If it doesn't show there then maybe something else is going on.

[paola]

Geoff, thanks for the tip! There are no dashes in the title, just ":" - however I will recheck the title as it appears on the device very carefully. It does not show in the device view, though, but I will have to recheck that, just in case something else has changed in the title so that they are not ordered alphabetically in the obvious way.

[BobC]

If you hover over "Path" in Library View for the book where does it point to -your backup epub book or the file with the long string of letters and numbers (the kepub direct from Kobo). If it is the former then a match in Library view would be to that book.

I have discovered the odd Kobo book lurking on my Glo which neither shows up on the device nor in device view - when I explode the file and look at it's contents it is not in English so it would stick out like a sore thumb if it appeared on the Glo or in Device view. I only mention this as there is clearly some way in which books can be on the device but not show up.

I'm always wary of books with punctuation in the titles although it shouldn't be a big issue with proper Kepubs where the file name is not derived from the title.

I take it that you can actually read the kepub version on the device and that you haven't sent a copy of your backup epub from Calibre to it.

BobC

[paola]

Originally Posted by BobC

If you hover over "Path" in Library View for the book where does it point to -your backup epub book or the file with the long string of letters and numbers (the kepub direct from Kobo). If it is the former then a match in Library view would be to that book.

strange, the path does not show (though it should), but at any rate I do know that the backup is the epub version downloaded from Kobo, and stored in my laptop's calibre library.

Originally Posted by BobC

I take it that you can actually read the kepub version on the device and that you haven't sent a copy of your backup epub from Calibre to it.

yes, precisely. This applies to all books bought from Kobo, and the oddity is that for all these others Kobo books (which exist as "native kepub" on my device, and as EPUB in my Calibre library) the book is matched - but again, it must be a title issue, I'll double check tonight.
Thank you all for the help!

[BobC]

Originally Posted by paola

......but again, it must be a title issue, I'll double check tonight.
Thank you all for the help!

Just an idea, try checking device view for the Author, not the Title.

Another point - I seem to have great problems matching books on device and library if there is an "&" in the Authors, i.e. if the book has more than one Author.

BobC

[paola]

Originally Posted by BobC

Just an idea, try checking device view for the Author, not the Title.

Another point - I seem to have great problems matching books on device and library if there is an "&" in the Authors, i.e. if the book has more than one Author.

BobC

thanks Bob, the "authors" sort was an excellent suggestion, and this way I found out that there are a few books that don't match: and all of them have either ":" in the title, or "&" in the authors field. But it wasn't the latter to create the problem, rather differences in the titles, e.g. in all of the "native kobo" books titles stop at the first punctutation mark. I changed the titles in the Library, disconnected and reconnected, and now they are all matched.

Again, thanks for the help!

[BobC]

Once you had found the "unmatched" books did you try right-clicking the book in Device View and using "Match book to Library" ? That should have allowed you to locate the Library book that matched the one on the device and then "connect" the two. Don't forget to update Metadata on device after matching. I found that after doing this the "Waiting Metadata Update" flag still shows - I then used Kobo Utilities to "Refesh List of Books on Device" to clear the flag and show the book as matched.

An easy way to find all the unmatched books is to sort on the "In Library" column while in Device View, then go to the end where all the unmatched books should be together.

Just some ideas to speed up the clean-up !

BobC

[paola]

Originally Posted by BobC

Once you had found the "unmatched" books did you try right-clicking the book in Device View and using "Match book to Library" ? That should have allowed you to locate the Library book that matched the one on the device and then "connect" the two. Don't forget to update Metadata on device after matching. I found that after doing this the "Waiting Metadata Update" flag still shows - I then used Kobo Utilities to "Refesh List of Books on Device" to clear the flag and show the book as matched.

thanks Bob, yes I did, but when I saw that the "Refresh..." command would update the device (or so I understood), I got scared, as I just spent a day fixing things broken by a hack gone bad. But I did use the "Match book to Library" to find the "missing" books.

I also have a custom columns "Bought from Kobo" (now it does not sound too grammatical - maybe it should be "Bought at Kobo") that I use to identify the "backup" Kobo books in Calibre, and this also helps.

Anyhow, thanks again!