Calibre series not supported with Kobo Glo HD

[NachoCalibre]

Hello everyone,

For many years I'm a happy Calibre user. I've never had any issues with the software.
Last week I switched from a Sony PRS-T1 to a Kobo Glo HD.

Calibre is working fine except for series.
I have a few series in Calibre like 'Harry Potter', 'The Millenium Trilogy' and 'The Hunger Games'.

They showed up as series very nicely on my Sony e-reader, but the Kobo Glo HD shows them as regular books, not as serie.

I can make a serie by hand and add the appropriate books, but then they're not in the correct order.
As a workaround I edit the book titles. Like 'The Hunger Games 2 - Catching Fire', but that's really the solution i'm looking for.

I tried different solutions like installing the 'Kobo Touch Extended' plugin and enable shelves through that plugin, but that didn't help either.

I'm using the latest version of Calibre and the latest Kobo Glo HD firmware.

A lot of people experience this issue so I would be very very happy is this can be fixed in a next Calibre update.

Thanks in advance!

With kind regards,
NachoCalibre

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

Changing the component for this bug.

 assignee davidfor
 tag kobo-driver
 status triaged

[David Forrester (davidfor)]

Firstly, can you point me to all the people having problems with series and the Kobo ereaders? It's been a few weeks since I saw the last one, so if "lot of people experience this issue" I would like to know where they are complaining.

The series update for the Glo HD, and ALL Kobo ereaders that support series works. Every single report of a problem with it in at least the last year has been because the user has not configured properly, or doesn't understand how it works.

The Kobo series support is to show the series name and index in the library list. This is shown in the library list between the book's title and author's name. Unfortunately, as there is no standard for series info in epubs, it isn't read from the books and has to be updated directly to the database. To make sure the series information is set, you need to:

- Select the "Set series information" in the driver configuration. This is the same whether you are using the KoboTouch driver or the extended driver.
- On the "Sending books to devices" page of the preferences, set "Metadata management" to automatic.

Now, when you connect the Kobo ereader, it will update the series information for all books on the device that are in the calibre library. If you send new books to the device, you have to disconnect the device and let it process the books and then connect again to get the series info set.

On problem with all this is that the Kobo does not have sorting by series info. People who find this is important usually resort to using a plugboard to add the series info to the title when the book is sent to the device. Which I understand Sony user do as well. Info on how to do this rather than editing the titles by hand is in http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=100949.

Of course, as you are coming from a Sony device, which doesn't have any series info support, that is probably not what you are looking for. What you are probably looking for is how to create collections for the series. That works pretty much the same as with the Sony. For a guide for how to create collections on a Kobo, see http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kobo_Shelves_and_Collections.

Now, if I am wrong and you have everything configured correctly, maybe there is a bug. But, I need to know what is actually happening and what you have done before it can be fixed. A log from running calibre in debug mode can help sort out what is wrong as well.

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

no followup

[Korhan arun (korhanarun)]

Yes the complainant is right that calibre is not working with kobo glo hd. I recommend to Mr. Goyal be considerate before accusing any complaint.
1.He asks to show all people with kobo glo problems but we are here
2. Even if one person have problem won't be it a problem? what he is expecting hundreds, thousands? WHAT number will satisfy?

thanks

[Eli Schwartz (eschwartz)]

Two people over the course of the best part of a year implies that davidfor (*NOT* Kovid Goyal) is correct in claiming that none of them actually have a problem, and all of them are instead suffering from a combination of unrealistic expectations and incorrect configuration of the options that are available.

And, feel free to complain to Kobo that their devices don't properly support series (but keep in mind that they do better than most). But calibre cannot magically fix things in the Kobo software.

...

But it really doesn't matter how many people claim to have the problem. What matters is that none of them can explain what the problem is.
e.g. you commented here that "it doesn't work", and "even one person should be enough", rather than (heaven forbid) *describing* your problem so davidfor can either fix it or tell you what you did wrong.
That being the case, you cannot possibly expect anything as unrealistic as anyone being *able* to help you.

Presumably it is more satisfying to throw around false complaints about his lack of consideration.

[David Forrester (davidfor)]

@korhanarun: Kovid marked the bug as invalid because I explained what I thought was happening, what to do to make sure the calibre and driver configuration was correct, and asked for more information if it was. In fact, there is no explanation of what the OP thought was wrong. Then, after two weeks with no response, Kovid closed the bug. The OP would have received a notification when this happened, so they could have complained at that time and supplied the needed details. As there was no response, we can only assume my response solved the problem.

The number of people reporting a bug here has little impact on it being fixed. In commercial products, it is likely the triage process will mean bugs with lots of reports are fixed quickly and single reports are given a low priority. For me, the number of reports of a bug is only interesting to know how many people are affected. But, if there are a lot of people with a problem, it can help debugging as reading the reports can help find a pattern to the problem. As the OP stated, "A lot of people experience this issue" and that wasn't my experience, I wanted a pointer to where the reports were so I could understand what was happening.

As to there being bugs in the KoboTouch driver, I am sure there are. But, I don't believe there are any in the series info handling. No-one has complained recently where I might see the complaint, or at the time of the OPs report. And when I check my devices, which includes a Glo HD, the series info gets populated how I expect it to. And the collections for series get created as well. If there is a problem, as Eli said, please tell me what it is. Preferably in copious detail. If it is well described elsewhere, please tell me where so I can see it. Without knowledge of what is going wrong, I can't even begin to fix the problem.