calibre will not edit epub books on sd card

[k. marchant]

kobo touch
browser firefox
os windows xp
also calibre says "error communicating with device"
yet it had just loaded the list of books on the card!
what i am trying to do is correct the data so that it appears correctly on my kobo reader
this bug has been around for at least 3 updates
definatly the last 2 - last version 0.9.27 now updated to version 0.9.30

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

Changing the component for this bug.

 assignee davidfor
 tag kobo-driver
 status triaged

[David Forrester (davidfor)]

Can you post the full error message? And what where you doing when the error occurred? I think that you are sending new book, but can't be sure from what you say.

[k. marchant (warlock17195)]

i have put the full error message
asto what i was doing - i opened calibre and connected my kobo
then accessed the card via the icon at the top of the calibre screen
then from the dropdown menu loaded the books on the card and tried to amend the data -
but it would not let me do anything - not even view the books

<email address hidden>
Mr K. Marchant.
15 Nursery Close,
Peterborough.
pe1 . 2py
UK

>________________________________
> From: David Forrester <email address hidden>
>To: <email address hidden>
>Sent: Thursday, 16 May 2013, 8:19
>Subject: [Bug 1180507] Re: calibre will not edit epub books on sd card
>
>
>Can you post the full error message? And what where you doing when the
>error occurred? I think that you are sending new book, but can't be sure
>from what you say.
>
>--
>You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
>report.
>https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1180507
>
>Title:
>  calibre will not edit epub books on sd card
>
>Status in calibre: e-book management:
>  Triaged
>
>Bug description:
>  kobo touch
>  browser firefox
>  os windows xp
>  also calibre says "error communicating with device"
>  yet it had just loaded the list of books on the card!
>  what i am trying to do is correct the data so that it appears correctly on my kobo reader
>  this bug has been around for at least 3 updates
>  definatly the last 2 - last version 0.9.27 now updated to version 0.9.30
>
>To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/1180507/+subscriptions
>
>

[David Forrester (davidfor)]

On the error dialog there are "Copy to clipboard" and "Show details" buttons. Pressing the "Show details" will show more details about the error that is occurring. Pressing the "Copy to clipboard" button will copy those details to the clipboard. They can be pasted into bug report. I need the details to see what has happened.

[k. marchant (warlock17195)]

here is the "view" error details:-

[Errno 22] invalid mode ('rb') or filename: u'K:\\Kane 02 Death Angel?s Shadow .EPUB'

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\device.py", line 85, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\device.py", line 602, in _view_book
File "site-packages\calibre\devices\kobo\driver.py", line 654, in get_file
File "site-packages\calibre\devices\usbms\cli.py", line 37, in get_file
IOError: [Errno 22] invalid mode ('rb') or filename: u'K:\\Kane 02 Death Angel?s Shadow .EPUB'

the book can be read on my kobo and the contents ARE there! - i am reading it at present.
other than this "view" error message, there is no error message when i try to edit the items on the card via calibre - it just does nothing,

<email address hidden>
Mr K. Marchant.
15 Nursery Close,
Peterborough.
pe1 . 2py
UK

>________________________________
> From: David Forrester <email address hidden>
>To: <email address hidden>
>Sent: Friday, 17 May 2013, 0:57
>Subject: [Bug 1180507] Re: calibre will not edit epub books on sd card
>
>
>On the error dialog there are "Copy to clipboard" and "Show details"
>buttons. Pressing the "Show details" will show more details about the
>error that is occurring. Pressing the "Copy to clipboard" button will
>copy those details to the clipboard. They can be pasted into bug report.
>I need the details to see what has happened.
>
>--
>You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
>report.
>https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1180507
>
>Title:
>  calibre will not edit epub books on sd card
>
>Status in calibre: e-book management:
>  Triaged
>
>Bug description:
>  kobo touch
>  browser firefox
>  os windows xp
>  also calibre says "error communicating with device"
>  yet it had just loaded the list of books on the card!
>  what i am trying to do is correct the data so that it appears correctly on my kobo reader
>  this bug has been around for at least 3 updates
>  definatly the last 2 - last version 0.9.27 now updated to version 0.9.30
>
>To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/1180507/+subscriptions
>
>

[David Forrester (davidfor)]

So, on the device list, you find the book and double-click on it to open it?

The problem is the file name. Specifically, it is the question mark in the name or whatever character it is replacing. Windows doesn't like the character as part of a file name. When calibre tries to open the file, it gets the error. To check exactly what the character and hence the filename is, look at the drive using explorer. The file will probably be there, but the name might be displayed incorrectly. And trying to open will fail.

The device can open the file because it is a Linux based device and the rules on file names are different. Or it is opening it in a way that gets around this.

I am not sure what you mean by "edit the items on the card". Are you trying to send new books to the card? Or are you trying to edit the metadata using the device list? Sending should work, and when it doesn't there should be an error message. Changing the books in other ways, can't be done directly on the device. You need to make the changes in calibre and then send the new copy over. And depending on the change, you need to delete the old copy first. If you change the metadata or structure of a book, it needs to be deleted first. But fixing spelling or grammar, or changing the styles, can probably be sent without deleting.

[k. marchant (warlock17195)]

as i have said - i have an micro sd card in my kobo; when i attach the kobo to my computer and open calibre it shows up at the top as card 'a' next to the kobo icon.
from which i can open the list of books on the card

what ever the file / book, it opens on my computer with the correct info (not metadata), but on the kobo opens with faulty titles, authors and metadata
so i want to correct them using calibre but calibre will not let me correct them via the list it shows.
doing them in calibre and then transfering the corrected files, takes a long time as calibre doesn't just transfer just the one file  - it sends each item in its own folder with 3 files in each, instead of one file with no folder, so i have to remove each folder plus some files and metadata! (ie. cover pictures jpeg plus opf file)

<email address hidden>
Mr K. Marchant.
15 Nursery Close,
Peterborough.
pe1 . 2py
UK

>________________________________
> From: David Forrester <email address hidden>
>To: <email address hidden>
>Sent: Friday, 17 May 2013, 18:58
>Subject: [Bug 1180507] Re: calibre will not edit epub books on sd card
>
>
>So, on the device list, you find the book and double-click on it to open
>it?
>
>The problem is the file name. Specifically, it is the question mark in
>the name or whatever character it is replacing.  Windows doesn't like
>the character as part of a file name. When calibre tries to open the
>file, it gets the error. To check exactly what the character and hence
>the filename is, look at the drive using explorer. The file will
>probably be there, but the name might be displayed incorrectly. And
>trying to open will fail.
>
>The device can open the file because it is a Linux based device and the
>rules on file names are different. Or it is opening it in a way that
>gets around this.
>
>I am not sure what you mean by "edit the items on the card". Are you
>trying to send new books to the card? Or are you trying to edit the
>metadata using the device list? Sending should work, and when it doesn't
>there should be an error message. Changing the books in other ways,
>can't be done directly on the device. You need to make the changes in
>calibre and then send the new copy over. And depending on the change,
>you need to delete the old copy first. If you change the metadata or
>structure of a book, it needs to be deleted first. But fixing spelling
>or grammar, or changing the styles, can probably be sent without
>deleting.
>
>--
>You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
>report.
>https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1180507
>
>Title:
>  calibre will not edit epub books on sd card
>
>Status in calibre: e-book management:
>  Triaged
>
>Bug description:
>  kobo touch
>  browser firefox
>  os windows xp
>  also calibre says "error communicating with device"
>  yet it had just loaded the list of books on the card!
>  what i am trying to do is correct the data so that it appears correctly on my kobo reader
>  this bug has been around for at least 3 updates
>  definatly the last 2 - last version 0.9.27 now updated to version 0.9.30
>
>To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+...

[David Forrester (davidfor)]

Firstly, my apologies as I seem to have completely missed replying to this. I can think of a reason I delayed which I'll get to, but it shouldn't have been this long.

OK, I got interpreted this incorrectly. You want to fix the metadata the device has after the book is sent. Strictly, to do this, you need to delete the book and resend it. The reason for doing this is that the device processes each book the first time it sees the book. It extracts the metadata and other info and puts it in an internal database. This database is used for the library. It you replace the copy of the book with updated metadata, the device will actually remove the book completely from the device. The Kobo driver in calibre has a method to prevent this, but it can't force the reread of the metadata.

Your transfer sounds a bit strange. If you use the "Send to device' button, it should just copy the book. It sounds like you are using "Save to disk" to put the book on the device. You can change the preferences for "Save to disk" to only save the book file, but "Send to device" is the better way to do it. "Send to device" uses the KoboTouch driver which has many configuration options including setting the path where the book is put.

Now part of the reason that I think I delayed responding is that I have had a plugin in development for a while to at least partly solve this problem. I had been planning to release this for a while and I think I saw your reply and put of replying until I had released the plugin.

The new plugin is the "Kobo Utilities" plugin. It includes a lot of different functions, but one is to update the metadata in the device database from the calibre library. The first release went out last week and it can be installed through the calibre plugin installation. See http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215339 for details of the plugin.

David

[k. marchant (warlock17195)]

thank you for this.
before i contacted calibre - one thing that happened when i try to bulk "send to device"
(n.b. i have nearly 1000 free ebooks - most converted into into epub format which need the meta data fixing so they display properly in my kobo touch),
was that the "send to device" crashed after the first few got sent;
which is one reason why i tried to fix the ebooks on the sd card via calibre
while the kobo was attached to my computer; it takes forever to do it individually - {and it added the folder as well!}

<email address hidden>
Mr K. Marchant.
15 Nursery Close,
Peterborough.
pe1 . 2py
UK

>________________________________
> From: David Forrester <email address hidden>
>To: <email address hidden>
>Sent: Wednesday, 19 June 2013, 6:33
>Subject: [Bug 1180507] Re: calibre will not edit epub books on sd card
>
>
>Firstly, my apologies as I seem to have completely missed replying to
>this. I can think of a reason I delayed which I'll get to, but it
>shouldn't have been this long.
>
>OK, I got interpreted this incorrectly.  You want to fix the metadata
>the device has after the book is sent. Strictly, to do this, you need to
>delete the book and resend it. The reason for doing this is that the
>device processes each book the first time it sees the book. It extracts
>the metadata and other info and puts it in an internal database. This
>database is used for the library. It you replace the copy of the book
>with updated metadata, the device will actually remove the book
>completely from the device.  The Kobo driver in calibre has a method to
>prevent this, but it can't force the reread of the metadata.
>
>Your transfer sounds a bit strange. If you use the "Send to device'
>button, it should just copy the book. It sounds like you are using "Save
>to disk" to put the book on the device.  You can change the preferences
>for "Save to disk" to only save the book file, but "Send to device" is
>the better way to do it. "Send to device" uses the KoboTouch driver
>which has many configuration options including setting the path where
>the book is put.
>
>Now part of the reason that I think I delayed responding is that I have
>had a plugin in development for a while to at least partly solve this
>problem. I had been planning to release this for a while and I think I
>saw your reply and put of replying until I had released the plugin.
>
>The new plugin is the "Kobo Utilities" plugin. It includes a lot of
>different functions, but one is to update the metadata in the device
>database from the calibre library. The first release went out last week
>and it can be installed through the calibre plugin installation. See
>http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215339 for details of
>the plugin.
>
>David
>
>--
>You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
>report.
>https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1180507
>
>Title:
>  calibre will not edit epub books on sd card
>
>Status in calibre: e-book management:
>  Triaged
>
>Bug description:
>  kobo touch
>  browser firefox
>  os windows xp
>  also calibre says "error communicating with device"
>  yet it had just loaded the list of books on the card!
>  what...