Calibre not recognising books on reader

[bluepeter]

Some of my e-books are bought from Kobo, whilst others are bought elsewhere. Copies of the ones bought from Kobo are:
(a) downloaded directly from Kobo to my Kobo e-readers; and also
(b) downloaded to my computer and held in Calibre.

(Books bought from other sources are also held in Calibre. These books are sideloaded from Calibre onto the device.)

When I connect an e-reader to the computer, Calibre reads its contents and tells me, in the LH column, which books are on that e-reader. However, there are a few books that it fails to recognise (about 1% of those bought from Kobo, I think). An example is shown in the attached screenshot. Although Love and Other Crimes is on the attached e-reader, there's no green tick.

Removing the download from the e-reader and then downloading it again from Kobo has no effect. I did that with Love and Other Crimes a few minutes before taking my screenshot. I haven't checked, but my impression is that it's the same few books that Calibre doesn't recognise on all of my Kobo e-readers.

Does anyone know why certain books aren't recognised and if there's any way of correcting this?

[hatuluang]

Send/sideload the book with no green tick again to Kobo with Calibre.

[Sirtel]

Probably something in the metadata is different?

You can use Match book to library to match them manually.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Probably something in the metadata is different?

You can use Match book to library to match them manually.

Ah, I see.

I wasn't aware of that functionality. Once I'd added the relevant icon to my toolbar, it was greyed out, which seemed a bit odd. Anyway, I did a bit of digging and found out how to use it.

You do appear to have identified both the problem and the solution for me. Thank you very much.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by hatuluang

Send/sideload the book with no green tick again to Kobo with Calibre.

No, that just duplicates the book.

There's two main reasons I've seen for this happening:

Automatch failures. This is very common if the book has multiple authors. It also happens when there's extra fluff in the title. Do what Sirtel mentions and use Match Book to Library.

Less common: the book isn't on the Kobo yet. Either it didn't get a chance to sync, or very rarely I've had the auto-download fail and require to press the 'download' button.

SmartEject can check for unmatched books and warn when trying to eject.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

No, that just duplicates the book.

Yes, quite so.

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

There's two main reasons I've seen for this happening:

Automatch failures. This is very common if the book has multiple authors. It also happens when there's extra fluff in the title. Do what Sirtel mentions and use Match Book to Library.

Less common: the book isn't on the Kobo yet. Either it didn't get a chance to sync, or very rarely I've had the auto-download fail and require to press the 'download' button.

It's only automatch failures in my case. I've been through four devices using Match book to library (very tedious!). Typically, I've found one of the following:
1. Differing titles e.g.:
(a) books of short stories, where one version has something like "and other stories", but the other doesn't; or
(b) the book is part of a series, where one set of metadata includes something like "(Book x of [Series Name])", but the other doesn't.
2. Books originally written in a language other than English and one set of metadata credits the translator but the other doesn't.

In other words, precisely the reasons that you've also found. And the mismatches are often caused by my own editing of the Calibre metadata. Doh!

[DNSB]

I see that fairly often since Kobo seems to be following Amazon's bad example and adding cruft into the book titles. I'd rather have the title correct the way I want it in calibre and have to match than to see a title such as one recent omnibus edition which used The whatever Box Set 1-4 and then added the titles of the individual books into the title.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I see that fairly often since Kobo seems to be following Amazon's bad example and adding cruft into the book titles. I'd rather have the title correct the way I want it in calibre and have to match than to see a title such as one recent omnibus edition which used The whatever Box Set 1-4 and then added the titles of the individual books into the title.

Agreed. It's dreadful, and I also edit stuff down in Calibre.

But is it Amazon/Kobo/Whoever adding stuff like that or the publisher? I thought that the publisher had complete control (bearing in mind that e-books are treated as software rather than physical product).

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by bluepeter

Agreed. It's dreadful, and I also edit stuff down in Calibre.

But is it Amazon/Kobo/Whoever adding stuff like that or the publisher? I thought that the publisher had complete control (bearing in mind that e-books are treated as software rather than physical product).

Probably the publisher since most of the books that have that type of title are from indie authors. Quite a few of whom seem to be moving to Kobo Plus from Kindle Unlimited so they can offer a 'free' reading version without getting locked into Amazon.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Probably the publisher since most of the books that have that type of title are from indie authors. Quite a few of whom seem to be moving to Kobo Plus from Kindle Unlimited so they can offer a 'free' reading version without getting locked into Amazon.

It's far from being even mainly indie authors, though. Val McDermid, for example, is a well-established and successful crime writer with a mainstream publisher. Attached are screenshots from Kobo and Amazon of her forthcoming book. And one of the books giving me similar trouble earlier was by Jonathan Kellerman - again, an established author with a mainstream publisher.

[DNSB]

For me, I find it more with indie authors who include the entire title displayed on the web page as the title so calibre initially displays that string. The mainstream publishers aren't immune as you mention, just less likely.

[bluepeter]

It seems that mismatches are sometimes caused by Kobo, not by my editing of the metadata in Calibre.

This morning, I bought a book of short stories from Kobo. It automatically downloaded onto my e-readers when I connected. I also downloaded a copy to Calibre.

When I connected the device to Calibre, there was a metadata mismatch between the two copies even before I touched it. One had "and other stories" appended to the title (correctly), whilst the other didn't. One gave a credit as author to the chap who wrote the introduction (wrongly, IMO), whilst the other didn't. Matching was a simple matter (thanks to the advice given above), but shouldn't have been necessary.

I can't understand why Kobo would have versions that differ in this way, depending on how they're downloaded. I get that one's a kepub and the other's an epub, but it's still bizarre.

[ownedbycats]

Importing to Calibre usually checks for metadata inside the ePub file, you can see this by opening in editor and checking the OPF file. Meanwhile, iirc, the device version uses metadata taken from the store itself.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Importing to Calibre usually checks for metadata inside the ePub file, you can see this by opening in editor and checking the OPF file. Meanwhile, iirc, the device version uses metadata taken from the store itself.

Interesting, thanks. But it's still odd that the two should differ.