Every Single Problem with iBooks for Mac

Being able to download more than once is great, however I wonder if that will be the case in several years time. Good books are something to keep for life. I'd much rather have my own copies that I can use (or convert) in the future to whatever platform I may choose to use...

Yes, keeping for ever would be the reason to go back and redownload and if nothing else put them on thumb drives. I have mine on an external drive, but when I clicked over to check on them, several of them showed the iBooks icon.

And everyone thinks the health care computer issues are a big deal, mess with my books, that IS a big deal.

MsQueenn wrote:

All the books are now under this path:

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

But now they're renamed with an ID, so it's hard to tell which book it is.

I too, am so upset with this half baked Mavericks and iBooks Apple calls themselves releasing. It's like they hate metadata. They already prevent us from editing any of our metadata on iOS, let alone viewing it!

<Edited by Host>

That can't be right. My Books folder in this location is only 394.1 MB -

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

My Books folder previously stored in my iTunes media folder on my External HD is 16.56 GB.

So either the new location is only placeholders pointing to iCloud, or there are a whole lot of books missing.

How about the most basic problem: It simply doesn't work! There are many of us with this same problem. When you double-click on a book it opens for a flash, and then disappears along with your library. Quitting and restarting does not restore it. You have to use the Window menu to view Library, and you use Zoom to creat a miniature (but re-sizeable) window with the book in it. This is ludicrous! I've never seen such rink-****, amateur programming from Apple. For me, this is a far bigger fiasco than Apple Maps was. 😟

Just want to add my voice to this in the hope that Apple actually care about its customers.

I have a number of epubs not bought through the apple store (downloaded from jw.org) I was expecting these to sync between my mac and ipad.They don't. They also don't sync between the ipad and iphone.

Come on guys this is basic stuff !

Surprising how little feedback from Apple given the problems with this very buggy and inadequate program. I copied the URL, for this thread, and sent it to them via the feedback link in iBook. Perhaps if they get a lot of feedback like that, this problem will be addressed in a timely manner. One can only hope.

Apple almost never responds in these forums - these is for user to user support only. They also almost never respond directly to anything posted via the feedback pages.

Essentially, there response, if or when it comes, will be in the form of an update or new release.

First, I'd like to see Calibre provide a mechanism to maintain the libraries and feed iBooks, both on the Mac and the iPad. I know Calibre is not Apple supported but it could turn into a true one-stop shop for eBooks and iBooks could be relegated to being just a reader and a way to order books from Apple.

But there is another way to transfer new titles to iBooks on the iPad. It's a kludge but it works and is not toooooo slow. Select the book file in the finder (mine are often from Project Gutenberg in epub format) and select SHARE chosing email. Mail it to yourself; receive the email on the iPad; download the eBook to the email; select the embedded email and tell it to open the document in iBooks.

Violà, the epub is on the iPad for subsequent reading.

The only thing iBooks has going for it is that it's fast.

epubs are basically containers for HTML files with some formatting markup.

iBooks trashes your epubs after extracting its contents into ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/iBooks/Books, so there's no way of getting back your epubs (so far).

Bad move. Very bad.

I am very disappointed with Apple because with the changes they made I am not able to import books easily into my iPad and I have a large number of books maintained and saved on my iMac especially in a foreign language.

It appears that Apple wants its customers to buy books only from its store as these only can be imported in various Apple devices.

As I use my iPad extensively for reading if Apple doesn't correct this problem I will be forced to change brand.

Fortunately, I had not upgraded(?) my MacBook Air so was able to retrieve and load all of my books, many of which are PDF format, on the Air. I disconnected it from iCloud so that it couldn't be contaminated with additions or deletions that I don't intend.

I have read and saved all of the suggestions, however am afraid to move forward on my desktop iMac because some of the suggestions are really hard to understand, especially when some of the links and files can't be found on my computer, it is uncertain whether everything will go up in smoke or like when I tried to clear some tagging done before Maverick all of the tagged files were deleted as well as the option of using that flag color. The red dot disappeared along with all of the tagged files. Poof.

Have no trust that, that won't happen with all of my books. Next step is to try and change sync authorization of iPad from iMac to MacBook and hope that I don't loose everything in that process.

It is becoming more and more like a "mind/property" controlling issue with Apple than presenting useful intuitive programs any more. We need more flexibility and access not a rigid set of programs that doesn't allow a user to make their own decisions.

I discovered that books that I had backed up on an external drive which was unfortunately connected at the time of install but not active that iBooks even converted the Books on the backup. It is as though if they can't controll the pricing they will control the format in a monopoly. It is very much like the Adobe digital reader and format which can't be sorted, added to or categorized either.

At least with real books I have the information at hand and it stays the same each time I open the book and can move them from room to room without the title or author changing.

Excel actually is still the best way to sort, list and control information, it may have been better to never upgrade and just keep everything in the basic Excel spreadsheets.

iBooks is frighteningly horrible, an absolutely wretched program, the software analog of the hockey puck mouse.

That's being polite---in reality, it is a complete abortion of a program, sucking not just in and of itself, but also removing substantial functionality from iTunes.

Kill it with fire.

Here are the instructions I followed to both nuke iBooks from orbit and restore iTunes to previous epub and pdf handling capabilities:

1.) Kill the bookstoreagent service using the Activity Monitor.

2.) Delete the file for that service: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CommerceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/bo okstoreagent

3.) Use AppCleaner to get rid of iBooks.

4.) Restart iTunes and you will find the Books tag return under library.

5.) Import your books again with all the metadata intact.

On my machine, I found that I not only had to restart iTunes, but also had to log out of my account and then log back in.

The good news is that once I did so, iBooks was dead and gone and iTunes was working properly again.

I'd like to find whoever did the Quality Control for iBooks and kick them repeatedly in the genitals.

Thanks for putting this list together. iBooks is really, really bad.

My entire library of over 1,500 books (epubs and PDFs) are now missing from my iBooks library. The files still exist, although iBooks changed all the filenames to an unreadable mess.

To make matters worse, I can't even add new books to my library. Nothing works.

Total crap. And it was about the only reason I upgraded o Mavericks, other than to get a tabbed Finder.