Purchased books collection empty on iPad

Question

Level 2

205 points

Purchased books collection empty on iPad

I updated to iBooks 3.0 on my iPhone 4S and iPad 2, both running iOS 6.0. Everything is fine on my iPhone, but on my iPad the "Purchased Books" collection is empty. The books I had downloaded were in my Books collection and the all books show up in the purchased area of the store, but nothing shows up in the library purchased area. In addition, some books I had downloaded showed as not being installed in the purchased area of the store.

I tried deleting all books off my iPad, but that didn't help. I noticed the books I deleted off my iPad showed up in the books area on my iPhone (but not downloaded). When I delete books of my iPhone it asks me if I want to delete them off all devices, but I don't get that option when deleting books on my iPad. Despite that, collections do appear to sync, though not instantly, and deletions on the iPad do eventually show up on the iPhone.

I tried removing iBooks on my iPad, restarting the iPad and reinstalling, but that didn't fix the problem. It also didn't remove any of the PDFs I had on my iPad. It also seemed to cause the books I deleted on my iPad to show up on my iPhone.

It seems like my iPad's book area is corrupt somehow. How can I fix this?

iPad 2, iOS 6, AT&T 64 GB

Posted on Oct 23, 2012 6:34 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 23, 2012 7:06 PM in response to Morac

Mine just crashes over and over and over...

Reinstalled. Rebooted. No clue how to make it work. It appears to have started after failing to download the books...

Definitely disappointed.

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Answer 2

WalrusC

Level 1

45 points

Oct 23, 2012 7:27 PM in response to Morac

Experiencing this exact same issue on my iPad 2; no problems with my iPhone 5. Have tried reinstalling, rebooting, etc. No luck.

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Answer 3

Morac Author

Level 2

205 points

Oct 23, 2012 7:50 PM in response to WalrusC

I'm convinced the app is broken on the iPad 2. I tried using iExplorer to wipe out the Books folder and iOS recreated it and it still didn't work. I even tried copying the folder from my iPhone to my iPad and it still didn't work.

Collections and bookmarks are syncing (i.e. download a book on my iPad and it shows up on my iPhone with a download icon) and my purchases show up in the purchased area in the Store so iCloud is working, but the app simply refuses to show me purchased books in the library.

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Answer 4

Oct 23, 2012 8:19 PM in response to Morac

I am having similar problem on ipad 3 and also one of my iPhone 5's but not the other one I have. Very strange if anyone has solution please advise

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Answer 5

Oct 23, 2012 8:24 PM in response to Morac

Morac, I have an iPhone and iPad and I am having the identical issues that you described. Exactly. I'm glad I read your post because I was getting ready to delete iBooks from my iPad and reinstall. You saved me the time. I was also concerned that my hundreds of personal PDFs would be deleted as well. I don't use iTunes sync/backup anymore and as far as I know I can't do a selective restore from icloud of just my I iBooks PDFs without wiping and restoring my entire iPad from icloud.

I am not convinced, as you said, that iBooks 3.0 for iPad has a huge bug and they will be issuing 3.1 within a week or so hopefully. My iPhone seems to be working fine as far as I can tell. This is disappointing that this bug didn't get weeded out in testing before they announce this at a huge apple event and it goes live in the App Store. I am also still having the same issue with iBooks 3.0 that I did with the prior versions where I have problems downloading PDFs into ibooks using "open in". About 50% of the time after selecting iBooks in "open in" for a PDF from mail, Internet, or another app, iBooks will open but the PDF never appears. This only happens on my iPad not iPhone. I typically have to close iBooks in the App Switcher and try again and again until usually after multiple tries it works. I have found that it happens mostly of iBooks is open in the background.

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Answer 6

WalrusC

Level 1

45 points

Oct 23, 2012 8:25 PM in response to Morac

From what I am starting to gather, it appears the issue MAY be a multiple devices issue. My iPhone 5 was my first to be updated, and it works fine. My iPad 2 was next, and it is having all the trouble. Hearing similar stories with different devices, common theme being first device updated being fine, thereafter not so much.

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Answer 7

Morac Author

Level 2

205 points

Oct 23, 2012 8:33 PM in response to EricOtown

Just a FYI. When I deleted and reinstalled iBooks, all my PDFs were still there. They aren't stored in the iBooks app which is why I thought maybe my iBooks data was corrupted. So basically if you uninstall and reinstall iBook, you shouldn't lose the pdfs. I didn't, but I can't guarantee that you won't.

iBooks is a universal app so there's a separate executables for the iPhone and iPad in the same app. Apparently the app is just buggy and Apple never bothered to test it with an iPad.

Has anyone had it work on an iPad and if so what model?

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Answer 8

Morac Author

Level 2

205 points

Oct 23, 2012 8:34 PM in response to WalrusC

I updated in that order as well, but I don't think the order has anything to do with it. The app should be able to show purchased apps regardless if syncing with iCloud is enabled or not. Personally my iCloud account and my iTunes account use different Apple ID's.

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Answer 9

Oct 23, 2012 8:43 PM in response to WalrusC

I updated my iPad first and the purchased books bookshelf was empty. Then in updated my iPhone and it worked fine. I have also tripled checked that the "Sync Purchased Books" button was set to "On" in my iPad Settings. It is. I even tried to turn it off and back on a few times. Closed iBooks running in the background. Rebooted my iPad. Deleted and reinstalled some books. Nothing works. Maybe they just forgot to turn on the icloud sync server for iPads purchased books. Who knows.

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Answer 10

Oct 23, 2012 9:08 PM in response to Morac

Ok now I have another issue that wasn't there before. Now I see a number 2 in ibooks on the button for "Store". I believe this is supposed to indicate that publishers have an update available for a books, but when I click the Store button with the number 2 it takes me to the ibooks store but I don't see any where to go for "Updates" to books. I scanned all of my books in the "Purchased" section and none have an "update" indicator. Any suggestions? This number 2 definitely wasn't there for the first couple hours after I updated to ibooks 3.0. It sounds like Apple may still be pushing out changes to ibooks thru their servers. Perhaps this issue with Purchased Books not showing up on the bookshelf on iPads will be fixed by morning. This may not require an updated version of ibooks. It's likely something that can be pushed out over Apples icloud servers that are pushing the "Purchased Books" in the first place. Just like minor changes to the App Store sometimes happen without an iOS update.

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Answer 11

Morac Author

Level 2

205 points

Oct 23, 2012 9:32 PM in response to Morac

Well I decided to do a "restore from backup" on my iPad 2 in case I messed something up and that was a bad idea since now my iPad won't even turn on. I'm trying to do a DFU restore now. I'm really annoyed since I just made a backup on my PC three days ago.

I have an iCloud backup, which I think I'll try to restore from first. Hopefully that works. Really annoying though.

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Answer 12

Morac Author

Level 2

205 points

Oct 23, 2012 9:49 PM in response to Morac

Since I did a restore I decided to set up my iPad as a new device and try iBooks. The "Purchased Books" collection populated correctly so it appears that is a "fix", albeit not the best one.

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Answer 13

Oct 23, 2012 10:44 PM in response to Morac

It looks like I'm the opposite. The Purchased Books section populated just fine on my iPad 3, but on my iPhone 5 it's empty. I tried deleting and re-installing the app on the iPhone but it still won't populate. To add insult to injury, I grabbed my wife's iPhone 4S and installed iBooks 3.0 and hers populated perfectly. We share the same Apple ID on all our iOS devices. If I go into the Store on my iPhone all the books show up on the Purchased tab like they always have. Very frustrating!

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Answer 14

Oct 23, 2012 11:00 PM in response to Michael Fata

I have to check my other iPad and iPhones. I only check my main iPad and iPhone that I use. I also have another iPad and two other iPhones that my wife and kids use but share my Apple ID. I'm curious if they are working. So far my main iPad is not and my main iPhone is.

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Answer 15

Oct 23, 2012 11:07 PM in response to EricOtown

That's really weird. My iPhone, My wife's iPad and her iPhone and my two kids iPhones who all use my Apple ID are working fine with this ibooks feature. So now it is only my iPad that is not working. That was the first device that I updated to ibooks 3.0. Not sure if that has anything to do with it.

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