Sync and Collections

[Lys]

I'm trying to map instances in which sync keeps running (causing a battery drain) due to collections.

So far, I had two different scenarios in which the sync failed:

• Lots of Collections (more than 70)
• Fewer Collections, but with two or more collections with lots (1.2 K ca) of books

Apparently, if I have only one Collection with 1K+ books, the sync-in-loop bug doesn't get triggered (I ran the sync with only "1K+ books" collection only once, so far, so this needs to be tested more to be proven correct). If I have at least two of them, it gets triggered.

Currently, I've 1.6K files on my Kobo: 300 (ca) are books purchased directly from the store and downloaded through KoboCloud. The others are sideloaded.

Do you know other cases in which collections cause the sync to get stuck?

[ownedbycats]

A few years ago there was a case where conflicting case in the shelf/collection names could break syncing:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...29&postcount=6
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...07#post4174307

Interestingly, purging my collections resolved the sync issue I was having. Only 10 cats, but a few had 100+ books. It's possible that there was some issue similar to the case-sensitivity though.



I'm going to nuke fiction and freebies, and look into splitting others to see if it helps.

[Lys]

I had these Collections:

Books (399)
Books || 2K - 20K (3)
Books || 20K - 40K (4)
Books || 40K - 80K (35)
Books || 80K - 150K (191)
Books || 150K+ (83)
Books: Short Listed (19)
Books: Up Next (15)
Books: Maybe (20)
Books: Low Interest (24)
Books: Worth a ReRead (15)
FanFiction|| 0K - 2K (89)
FanFiction|| 2K - 20K (560)
FanFiction|| 20K - 40K (154)
FanFiction|| 40K - 80K (186)
FanFiction|| 80K - 150K (186)
FanFiction|| 150K+ (145)
FanFiction (1320) (Now deleted)
FanFiction: Short Listed (43)
FanFiction: Kudos <100 (46)
FanFiction: Kudos <300 (232)
FanFiction: Kudos <600 (268)
FanFiction: Kudos <1000 (204)
FanFiction: Kudos <1500 (178)
FanFiction: Kudos <2000 (95)
FanFiction: Kudos >2000 (262)
FanFiction: Fandom 1 (1305)
FanFiction: Fandom 2 (1)
FanFiction: Fandom 3 (14)

And with this structure, the sync process is currently working (it takes just half a minute to process everything).

Yesterday, I loaded around 100 new FF, and the sync got stuck.
I deleted on the device FanFiction and Fandom 1 (the biggest collections), and it started working again. Today, I recreated through Calibre the Fandom 1 Collection (but I disabled the generic Fanfiction one) and it kept working.

So, my assumption is that it's having 2 collections with over 1K and something books that caused the crash.

I'm half tempted to add again collections (but keeping a low number of books in each) to see when the sync crashes again

[ownedbycats]

Here's my new collection setup:



About to test. Hopefully that one 150+ fanfiction category won't break it.

[Lys]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Here's my new collection setup:

Attachment 199886

About to test. Hopefully that one 150+ fanfiction category won't break it.

I don't think it will break, my structure, which you can see above, worked well for over a month before getting (temporary?) KO after adding way too many files, but I still have several collections with hundreds of books in each one of them and so far so good

[ownedbycats]

Sync seems to be working.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I think my sync problems coincided with me creating the "fiction" collection.

[Lys]

Sync failed again earlier today (after a couple of days working correctly, I'm really about why a setting that didn't give any issue for a couple of days started to give me issues today), draining my poor battery from 90 to 55 in a couple of hours.

I deleted:

Books
Fandom 1

collections on the device, and the sync finished (and - as expected - the drainage stopped), I suspect the faulty one was "Books".

I'm going to take a look at the sqlite file next time I connect my Kobo to check if I see something glaring wrong there

[ownedbycats]

Damn!

Might be worth deleting them on device, syncing, and then letting the KoboTouch(Extended) driver repopulate them.

[jmw1011]

This issue started for me about a year and a half ago. Deleting all my collections and recreating them worked as a temporary fix. The problem always came back after a few weeks, even if no changes were made to my collections.

I've tried different amounts of collections, experimented with differing numbers of books per collection, and tried to determine if there is a specific book that causes the problem for me. I made sure all the collection tags I use in Calibre matched what is on my Kobo and also tried just manually creating collections on the kobo. Of course I also tried factory resets, too. None of this worked.

Last summer I bought a Clara on sale hoping my collection problem would go away. The sync problem happened as soon as I set up collections and went away after I deleted them all.

The only solution I've found is to sideload all of my kobo books. I use Calibre to manage my collections and so long as they only have sideloaded books in them, I do not have sync issues. It is fine to have kobo books downloaded from the cloud on my Kobo, I just can't put them into a collection.

Edit to add: I also tried removing sideloaded books from collections, then from the device entirely. This didn't matter. It seems to be a communication problem with kobo's server. If I have even one downloaded book in a collection, sync eventually gets stuck.

[Rid]

@jmw1011 thanks for sharing your experience 👍

[Lys]

Yesterday, I casually went through the wiki for Kobo & Collections, searching for references to pass along to a friend, and I noticed this bit (which I never knew, or if I knew, I forgot)

The option also exists to ensure that neither shelves nor their contents (only Kobo format books) EVER sync to the Kobo servers.

To do this, with your Kobo attached to your computer, browse through the directories on it and find the .kobo\Kobo directory. (Note that under Linux and OS/X environments, the .kobo directory will be hidden due to the leading period). Within this directory will be a couple of files; the one you are concerned with is the Kobo eReader.conf file. This file contains various options that are used to control the device.

Open this file in a text editor (on Windows for instance, use Notepad++, NOT Word or Write), and look for a line [ApplicationPreferences]. After this line, add a new line SyncShelves=false. Save the file, and disconnect the Kobo as usual.
The addition of this line will ensure that shelves do NOT get synced to the Kobo Cloud.

My sync is running correctly so far, but should it go KO again, I'll try this before deleting shelves like I did in the past.

EDIT to add: it seems the option is no longer supported.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Lys

Yesterday, I casually went through the wiki for Kobo & Collections, searching for references to pass along to a friend, and I noticed this bit (which I never knew, or if I knew, I forgot)



My sync is running correctly so far, but should it go KO again, I'll try this before deleting shelves like I did in the past.

It's a lot easier to manage collections (not called shelves) using Calibre.

[Lys]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It's a lot easier to manage collections (not called shelves) using Calibre.

But I do. That's not the point we are discussing

The problem highlighted in this thread is that sometimes the sync process doesn't finish on the device and the issue seems to be linked to the collections (I - or others - created through Calibre). Maybe the issue is linked to the # of collections we have, maybe with the number of books we have in them. Some reported they managed to avoid the issue by *not* putting downloaded books in the collections. To pinpoint the cause(s) has been a trial-and-see process.

So far, deleting the collection(s) on the device does the trick to unstuck the sync process. You can then create again the collections and - at least for a while - everything is fine.

Since I personally have 0 need to have my collections sync'ed to the cloud, try and tell my Kobo not to sync them may solve the issue once and for all


PS: Shelves, Collections... we all know here what we are talking about - regardless on how Kobo changed the name over time

[ownedbycats]

I think Jon didn't bother reading the entire post again, lol.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I think Jon didn't bother reading the entire post again, lol.

The OP's first post in this thread did not mention Calibre. This is a case of the OP leaving out info that may have been useful.