Author Topic: Issue with adding books [duplication]  (Read 3378 times)

errantaspiration

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Issue with adding books [duplication]
« on: January 04, 2020, 07:35:23 pm »
I've been running into an issue and I can't seem to find anything in the documentation about it, so thought I'd ask here.

I'm on a 5th gen Kindle Fire, ftr, using the basic version of the app available through the kindle app store.

So what I'm running into is this:
The fire is super restrictive and doesn't allow some (many) files to be recognized and opened by programs, seemingly by caprice, which forces the exclusive use of the scan feature - as a note if there is an onboard file explorer I can't find it, but that would solve it too I guess, I didn't see anything noting that in the documentation either tho - ANYWAY.
Yeah. Copies of a bunch of em, every time. I remove and do clean up but as my.library grows it becomes less manageable, and I thought I should mention it since maybe there's a simple fix I'm overlooking. Or I found a bug, either way.

It's not even all my books is funny thing. Really curious if anyone has any idea why that might be.

Thanks for any help or insight, appreciate it.

kweckwor

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Re: Issue with adding books [duplication]
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2020, 07:22:15 am »
Each entry in the app library represents a separate file with a distinct file path. If you're seeing what looks like duplicate entries for the same book, then that probably means you have multiple files for the same book on your device. You can see the file path in the Book Information view, so check that for each of the duplicate entries to see if the File Path value is different for each duplicate. By default you should see File Path in the Book Info view, but if not, you can enable that in the eLibrary Settings "Book Info Properties" setting by adding "File Path" to the selected properties.

With respect to your mention of "an onboard file explorer", the full version of the app includes a Book Info Browser which allows you to browse your library based on different metadata/book info criteria. One browsing criteria available is File Path, so that gives you a way to navigate the file system to see the books loaded in your library. This feature isn't available in the Basic app though.

kweckwor

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Re: Issue with adding books [duplication]
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2020, 07:34:23 am »
On re-reading the original post, I wanted to mention a couple of extra things.

By "onboard file explorer", you might have meant an external file explorer from which you can launch the reader of your choice, as opposed to a "file explorer" view in the eLibrary Manager app itself. You're correct that an external file explorer will likely allow you to launch my reader. I don't know what file explorers are available in the Amazon App Store, but I would suspect there should be a number to choose from.

One more thing to mention is that, by removing a book entry from your eLibaray Manager library does not delete the underlying book file. It simply removes the app record for it. Performing a scan again will add the record back. So if you don't want a book to reappear on every scan, you would need to delete the underlying book file so a subsequent scan won't find it. You can do that with a file explorer on the device, if you have one installed, or if not, you should be able to do the same by connecting your device to a PC over USB so that you see the device shared storage as a drive on your PC.

One of the fundamental principles of my app is that it never touches book files on your device. It simply allows you to have access to files that have been externally copied to the device, but it never updates or deletes those files.

errantaspiration

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Re: Issue with adding books [duplication]
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2020, 03:06:52 pm »
Thank you for responding so quickly. I double checked the doc folder for duplicate files but there don't appear any.

Howev, after mussing with scan settings a bit, I think you've hit on it, and it's something to do with the fires extremely funky way of organizing things (in one instance, it seems to have stored 8 separate copies of a book across my device?? strange.).

I'll try an explorer utility and see if I can fix the duplication there, it figures it's the kindle.  Thing's a menace.

Thank you again for the promptness and the great app!  :)

errantaspiration

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Re: Issue with adding books [duplication]
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2020, 03:57:15 pm »
I'm afraid I have a follow-up question.

Is there a simple way to preserve or carry-over book progress when restructuring folders? I can pen and paper it if need be, thought I'd ask though.

kweckwor

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Re: Issue with adding books [duplication]
« Reply #5 on: January 05, 2020, 09:00:37 pm »
If a book file path changes as a result of the folder restructure (which I assume it would), then the progress will be lost. The book progress is associated with a specific book and changing a book file path effectively results in a new book.

I understand that you are using eLibrary Manager Basic, but just so you know, in the full version, book position for the last 20 books opened (configurable, so it can be set higher) is saved based on book title and author(s). In that case, if a book file path changes, then as long as the title and authors remain the same, the first time the new book is opened in the reader, it would open at the last reading position (and therefore restore the progress).

So I guess the bottom line is that, in the basic version, there is no way to easily carry over book position and progress if the book file is moved to a new folder in the device file system. In the full version, you could carry over the last 20 opened book positions (and progress) as long as each of those books is opened in the reader which would restore the last position.

errantaspiration

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Re: Issue with adding books [duplication]
« Reply #6 on: January 06, 2020, 07:42:26 pm »
Ah, that's very good to know for the future! Thank you for the thorough response.  :)