iBooks in Mavericks lost 700 books

Seriously? I had over 2700 books in iTunes. I can't fingure out which books are the missing ones in the Library folder, because all the folders have numeric names. I wish I had waited before upgrading to iBooks, but I couldn't find a single warning on the net about there being any problems. Why was everyone who beta tested Mavericks giving it such glowing reviews on the Net and saying no problems with anything. I'm seriously unhapppy about this mess.

I was able to solve it by changing permissions to the files I was moving to iBooks.

I set the permission for everyone to Read&Write opposed to Read Only, deleted the Temporary folder in ~/Library/Containers/com.Apple.BKAgentService/Data , and re-added the pdf and epub files with success to the iBooks Library.

Good idea, ddregs :) I'll try the same and check.

Hi ddregs,

what do you mean with changing permissions? Of the original files that you add because these already have read/write for everyone in my case? Or do you mean of the library files?

Kind Regards,

Nico...

Hi nicolinden,

I was adding a pdf file , and I got the same error as Mark Lyon1.

1) I deleted the 0KB entry in the ~/Library/Containers/com.Apple.BKAgentService/Data/Temporary folder.

2) I highlighted the original pdf file in the Finder, Get Info, I applied the Read&Write permission to the Everyone entry

3) I readded the same pdf file and it succeeded.

So, the permission for the everyone did the trick. I did the same with all the files and the process went on flawless.

Kind Regards,

Luca

Hi Luca,

Tried it out but didn't work for me. Around 800 books are still not showing up in iBooks. They are all there in the Books folder and show up in a Spotlight search.

The only difference is that I am now able to drag and drop them into iBooks without the 'Operation not permitted' alert. But a substantial portion of my collection is still not being displayed in iBooks.

Please note ~ I had no 0KB entry in the Temp folder. I even turned on hidden files but this folder was empty.

Hope Apple fixes this soon.

Regards,

Urmi

Hi Urmi,

I am sorry this didn't help you.

I just checked the entire folder and saw the Download folder was full of 0KB entries, maybe created at first while migrating from iTunes.

I just deleted them, for the sake of it.

If I was you, I would try to search how to delete and recreate the iBooks library file, and readding them now while the permission thing is fixed.

Kind Regards

Luca

I just tried again today with seperate files and each time they are added to the library and after I close and re-open the application they are gone again (although they still exist in the library folders). Strange thing is though that when I open the file immediately after adding it to the ibook app it really works. It shows my bookmarks, opens on the page where I left off on my ipad and I can really read the book.

I did call apple support today but that didn't help a thing (I really wonder why you pay so much for it). They mentioned that they were aware of it but that the problem is caused by the format of the ePub file. That is out of reach from apple and there might be a solution in the future but main issue is the format that was delivered by the source....

I think I will see if I can rebuild them somehow but in meantime I will see if I can re-install snow leopard on my mac mini and then upgrade to mountain lion so that I can sync my ipad and iphone's through those libraries because this is really a show stopper for me...

Ok I just downloaded calibre and indeed, when I rebuild the epub from that app I can import them succesfully into ibook. So this has to be the way forward for me then, this also solves the issue that I cannot change the meta data in ibook...

Pitty that it is necessary but if I have to wait for apple then I am affraid it takes months

Yep, Calibre's a lifesaver. Think I'll even try out a Calibre - Marvin combo across my devices till iBooks starts to behave.

When I looked in my iTunes media folder, there was still a folder in there labeled books. In that folder were folders with author names which contained a huge number of my PDFs and non-iBooks ePubs. When I checked a few of these titles in iBooks, they weren't there, and of course there is no more books category in iTunes, so they don't show up anywhere but in my iTunes media folder. All the books that did transfer into iBooks are in a different folder in the location I selected for them.

I think I figured out how books works on Mavericks this morning. I have an iPAD iTunes library and a seperate iPhone iTunes library.

Upon installing Mavericks all my books were copied to iBooks. I believe iBooks is the "new" and only library for books and PDFs now.

All my books and PDFs show up in iBooks. I was perplexed on how I would get a new book to either my iPad, iPhone or both.

In iBooks as a test I created a new collection called Test and sure enough within seconds that empty collection showed up on both iDevices. Good.

I dragged a test book into this new Test collection but the book not purchased through the iTunes Store, didn't appear on either iDevice.

I opened iTunes using my iPhone library. Of course "Books" on the left library pane is gone now. However at the top of iTunes where Apps, Music, Tv Shows, etc are, there is a Books option there and only there.

I opened that and I then needed to "select" which books should sync to my iPhone. I chose the new test book, did a sync and bam it showed up on my iPhone.

So think of the iBooks app as "the library" Then in iTunes you need to go to the top and open Books and then actually select which books to sync with a particular iDevice.

I haven't done any testing with PDFs yet. It's early and I need more coffee. 😕

BigNavy505

Thank you, BigNavy505, your suggestion worked for getting both PDFs and non-DRM books back on my iPad!

I just sent Apple feedback about iBooks via the "Provide iBooks feedback" link in iBooks. I encourage everyone else to do the same.

Same thing here. Also, not found in my MBP nor other desktop.

aehaas