New Kindle Paperwhite Will Not show epub coverted mobi covers

[VirgoGirl]

Hi!


I bought my daughters Kindle Paperwhites for their birthdays, which is today. As they aren't ready to start buying books from Amazon, I converted some of my epubs to mobis for them to read in the mean time. However, when I put the mobis onto one of the paperwhites, the covers show up as generic, not with the book covers.

I dragged and dropped the mobis into a folder I created called "Books" under the "documents" folder, I did not use Calibre to add the files.

I converted the files with Calibre, Paperwhite page set up. I tried converting with the "enable sharing" box clicked under MOBI settings, didn't work. I tried converting with both old and new files int he mobi, didn't work.

I am pulling my hair out trying to figure out what the heck to do, searching the web but nothing seems to work. Is it a setting on the Kindle?

[Edited - MODERATOR]

Thank you for ANY help!

[kovidgoyal]

You want covers to show up you have to put the files on there with calibre. Amazon has changed the firmware on newer kindles to not read covers from sideloaded books. calibre will uplaod thumbnails of the covers along with the book, bypassing Amazon's idiocy.

[VirgoGirl]

So the only way would be to copy the cover.jpg files over WITH the mobis?

I don't use Calibre to add books to readers - I did it once and my Kobo had to be restored - and as these belong to my daughters who aren't able to do more than drag and drop files from one thing to another.

I was hoping there was a more simple way.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

[snip]
I don't use Calibre to add books to readers
[snip]
I was hoping there was a more simple way.

That is the simpler way. If you choose not to use it, then there's only the hard way.

[VirgoGirl]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

That is the simpler way. If you choose not to use it, then there's only the hard way.

A simple, "there appears to be no other way" would have been preferable to an undeservedly snarky sounding comment that you offered.

As I said before, I do not use Calibre to add books as I had a bad experience having done that with my Kobo. I use Calibre ONLY to reformat books. I do not want to have to reformat my daughters' Kindles because some weird glitch came up because I plugged it in to Calibre, which is EXACTLY what happened with my Kobo.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

A simple, "there appears to be no other way" would have been preferable to an undeservedly snarky sounding comment that you offered.

You're right. I apologise.

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

As I said before, I do not use Calibre to add books as I had a bad experience having done that with my Kobo. I use Calibre ONLY to reformat books. I do not want to have to reformat my daughters' Kindles because some weird glitch came up because I plugged it in to Calibre, which is EXACTLY what happened with my Kobo.

While 'once bitten, twice shy' is often a sensible approach, in this case I think you might be taking it to excess.

If calibre was in the habit of messing up people's ereaders when transferring books to them, I think we would see rather a lot of messages in the calibre forums to that effect.

Since we don't, I think it's safe to say that your unfortunate experience is unlikely to be repeated if you do give it a go.

If you have the time, an email to Kindle customer services complaining about the behaviour of recent Kindles with side-loaded ebooks might be in order.

[eschwartz]

I have never had an issue with any of the Kindles in my family by plugging them into calibre. All calibre does is copy the books over with a special logic to also copy over cover thumbnails (and possibly an apnx for pseudo-random page numbers, unless you disable it). It shouldn't be any different from using the File Browser.

The Kobo on the other hand has a database which calibre edits -- maybe that is what messed up your Kobo? Although this doesn't usually happen (or we'd hear a lot more complaints, and calibre would stop doing it until there was a safe way to do so) sometimes things go wrong.

It sounds like more of a Kobo-specific problem in any event, rather than something which calibre does to readers in general, regardless of how repeatable the issue may be.

[VirgoGirl]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

You're right. I apologise.

It's okay, *I'M* sorry. I'm just really full of frustration right now and kind of touchy. My daughters (18) didn't even want ereaders, I forced them onto them. So that I can't get this to work is just another reason for them to glare at me and say "See?"

Originally Posted by pdurrant

While 'once bitten, twice shy' is often a sensible approach, in this case I think you might be taking it to excess.

Like it would be the first time, lol!

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If calibre was in the habit of messing up people's ereaders when transferring books to them, I think we would see rather a lot of messages in the calibre forums to that effect.

Since we don't, I think it's safe to say that your unfortunate experience is unlikely to be repeated if you do give it a go.

If you have the time, an email to Kindle customer services complaining about the behaviour of recent Kindles with side-loaded ebooks might be in order.

You're right. It's not just the "Calibre may cause problems" issue (although as you say "once bitten"), it's also my kids are not computer literate (I know, they're weird). I can't get them to listen to me on how why to install Itunes (they don't have Apple products either. Again, weird), let alone an ebook program.

I think I will call Amazon, though, because I can't get sideloaded converted AZW3 files to show up on their homepage when I load them.

[VirgoGirl]

I should maybe mention I'm using Calibre 0.9.33 & tools_v5.4.1 if any of that make a difference. I only update when I start having a problem, which I haven't had. Until maybe now.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

I should maybe mention I'm using Calibre 0.9.33 & tools_v5.4.1 if any of that make a difference. I only update when I start having a problem, which I haven't had. Until maybe now.

It's possible the Kobo device interface plugin was out of date. Did it ever say it sensed a database that was newer than the plugin supported, and ask if you wanted to edit it anyway?

Kobo often updates their firmware and database versions and calibre has to be patched to support it. (sometimes by bumping the version number, but only if it turns out no editing updates are needed.) If so, well, the prefs blurb tells it all:

Kobo routinely updates the firmware and the database version. With this option calibre will attempt to perform full read-write functionality - Here be Dragons!! Enable only if you are comfortable with restoring your kobo to factory defaults and testing software

[theducks]

Originally Posted by VirgoGirl

I should maybe mention I'm using Calibre 0.9.33 & tools_v5.4.1 if any of that make a difference. I only update when I start having a problem, which I haven't had. Until maybe now.

9.33 is probably too old for a newer Paperwhite (ver 2). Drivers get updates as models evolve..

USB connection to my K4nt is a solid way to update (and you can charge it also with a high powered USB Hub)