Not impressed! No edit info, no library management!

@Kevin - Worked a treat and all my books are back in iTunes where they belong. iBooks has been banished to the bit bucket never to be opened again!!!

Kevin,

I really appreciate your digging into this and as I read you found a bypass to solve that mess with iBooks. I'm now on my way to try out your 'solution' and would like to get some more clarification please:

1) where from did you restore your books with the use of the iTunes Library Manager back into the iTunes Media library? From a external backup or from that newly created Container-directory where iBooks migrated all the books and PDF's into?

I have all my books/pdfs saved on external storage and would think I'd go from there importing them again into iTunes.

2) did you delete that Container-directory (BKAgentService directory) after your step 3) when you got rid of the iBooks application with AppCleaner?

In my opinion I'd say it could be wise to save the iBooks Application and the com.apple.ibooks preference file and maybe even that Container-directory to a safe/external place before cleaning the application out of your system. In order not to run into possible problems later with upcoming OSX Mavericks updates or even enhancements to iBooks (should they ever happen). What do you think?

If you could refine your step by step proceedings above in getting rid of iBooks and back to iTunes that be very kind I'd guess for all of us frustrated ones.

By the way you are my hero ! Thanks a lot for your effort.

Andy

Kevin, thank you! Worked for me.

A question for those of you for that Kevin's solution worked:

Do you have your epub and pdf files pyhsically back in your 'iTunes Media' folder? Here they used to be before and could therefore easily be backed up to some external device.

Or do you still find them in your mostly unreadable folder created by iBooks migration:

Hi Andy,

My old library did show up in iTunes but the files were not there in the 'iTunes Media' folder.

The Books folder buried in Library with the files with strange names was gone, though.

I just deleted everything from iTunes and restored my library from an earlier backup.

Everything seems to be ok now.

I was just wondering ~ how do I get iBooks back, when (and if) it's usable?

Regards,

Urmi

Hi Urmi,

I followed a similar way to yours but before I deleted the bookstore agent in the System/Library and the iBooks application I put everything aside, including the whole ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/.

I thought, just in case, one never knows if you have to roll-back one day.

I then saw all my books back in iTunes and had the Books Icon in the iTunes sidebar back and everything in place like before. But then I figured out that 'physically' the epubs and pdfs still resided here:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks

• So I deleted all my books in the iTunes Library.
• I then deleted the ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/ directory (knowing I had a backup at hand).
• Imported my books again into the iTunes Media folder (File > Add to Library) from my backup on NAS. This went smooth for my epubs but not for my pdfs the did not show up in iTunes again for whatever reason.
• Therefore I next restored the whole /iTunes Media/Books directory (20 GB appox. in my case) back from my NAS as well as the 'iTunes Library' files from my backup.
• Restarted iTunes and all was set.
• Synchronicing with my various iOS devices works as before.

This fixed my problem. Thank you. Luckily iBooks never actually moved my books. It just said it did. Everything was still in my iTunes Media Folder. iBooks is gone now (this is probably the WORST experience I've ever had with Apple). The Books icon is back in iTunes. I dropped my Books folder back in iTunes and voila - everything is like it used to be.

THANK YOU!

Kevin you're the greatest. Your fix worked like a charm

I'm glad it worked, for those of you who tried it.

Here's the step by step of exactly what I did.

1.) Stopped the bookstoreagent process.

2.) Moved its file to elsewhere (Documents) so it wouldn't start up again on reboot.

3.) Copied the new buried iBooks book storage folder to my Desktop

4.) Opened up iTunes, and added all those books back in from that Desktop copy of the directory

5.) In iTunes, used the Library Manager to copy all those books back into the iTunes directory for storage.

6.) Went back and deleted my Desktop copy of the iBooks storage, and iBooks for Mac, and the books in the new iBooks storage folder.

7.) Crossed my fingers.

8.) Opened up iTunes, saw all my stuff there, synced to my iPad, and was, yea, verily happified.

It worked for me, anyway. You would certainly have to close iTunes and restart it after stopping the bookstoreagent process for Books to return, but you'll also have to add books into iTunes for the Books tab to reappear. Just use File: Add to Library for that. After the tab is back, you can just drag and drop files onto it to add books.

I did have one weird thing happen. A pdf showed up in Music! Strange. But nothing awful happened.

I figure if someday iBooks is all fixed up and works well, they'll have a download of it available, and I'll reinstall it at that point. But I was miffed that there was no warning that the inadequate iBooks would take over all book management from iTunes if you simply opened it. Not cool at all. Irritating, in fact.

Anyway, I'm happy to have helped figure something out that's been helpful to others. Happy weekend!

Kevin, this looks like a fantastic solution. Thank you! I'm sure that book-lovers worldwide are grateful. I actually restored my entire system back to Mountain Lion until someone worked out a workaround for this.

Now, having been once burned, I'm theorizing that I can prevent this problem by:

1. Stopping the bookstoreagent process and then hiding it somewhere

2. Never starting iBooks

You've modeled a repair process. Do you think this simpler prevention process will work?

Steven

Thanks Kevin!

I had a cow when I realized all the years of effort tagging and organizing my iTunes PDF collection

went down the drain with iBooks...

I'm glad I got rid of iBooks and hope a future update to iTunes doesn't cause problems.

However, i found all my PDFs in the iTunes media folder have now been stripped of their metadata... 😟

Fortunately most of these are on another computer at work still running mountain lion...

Would the best method for me be to use iTunes sharing to re-import them directly into iTunes?

Can any of the newer PDFs not in the that iTunes library be salvaged from my iPad?

I'm terrified to synch my iPad for fear losing these new files...(though technically they exist scattered

throughout my 'ruined' haystack of PDFs).

Any advice?

Thanks Kevin. This saved me greatly. I created documents for an exam I am taking and when I went to add them to my ipad I couldn't because there was no longer a way to do this in iTunes. I am breathing a sigh of relief. I will not need the ibooks app I don't think. I prefer to have the ability to add to my library, especially in instances where I am studying a lot of material for class or work.

Thanks from me too, Kevin. I have more than 1000 books and pdfs that got messed up. Unfortunately, before I saw your post, I had already reverted to ML from Time Machine (restart and cmd R at the grey screen). This put me back on the old itunes and everything's OK.

I will try your procedure on my Macbook Pro before the upsetting the desktop again. Looks good though!

One question: can I keep the app somewhere and reinstate it when Apple eventually sorts this mess out? It is not available separately.

Like everyone, I am disgusted with this episode. What did we get in Mavericks for all this hassle? Maps and maybe battery life on the MBP. But screwing up the library is serious!

Buona Dominica from Roma!

Hi,

Just another "unhappy iBooks-client". These (missing) features are really precious for those of us that have lots of books.

Please, don't forget to fill the feedback form, on the iBooks/Provide iBooks Feedback menu.

Another thing that bothers me, is that Apple should have thought this whole ecosystem of the book management more thoughtfuly. Why don't they fuse the Preview and iBooks apps? (just like on iOS) Don't they look forward for minimalism and simplicity?

This post should grow exponentialy to call the attention.

A small refinement or let's say alternative to Kevin's wonderful solution:

1.) Stopped the bookstoreagent process.

2.) Moved its file to elsewhere (Documents) so it wouldn't start up again on reboot.

Now assuming that you want and have organized all your media (music, video, book, pdf, etc.) in your 'iTunes Media' folder:

3) Opened up iTunes, made sure I had checked 'Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library' in iTunes >Preferences>Advanced

4.) Went to iTunes>File>Library and checked 'Consolidate library' (and all my files (books/pdf's) magically reappeared (got copied back) in my iTunes Media folder (with all tags and so on like they used to be)

5.) Counted to ten.

6.) Restarted iTunes, saw all my stuff still there.

7.) Deleted iBooks for Mac (maybe wise to backup it to some external drive before), and the books in the new iBooks storage folder (that's in:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks)

8.) Synced to my iPad, and was, yea, verily happified.

For whom it helps.

Message was edited by: Andy Epprecht