iBooks in Maverick will not open / download

While Femoca's method provides an emergency fix, the issue still occurs again from time to time. After trying these and those, now I have found how I can reproduce the issue consistently:

1. If I buy a book on an iOS device and download it, then the item cannot be downloaded on any Mac.

2. Suppose I budy a book from a Mac iBooks app and downdlowd it on the same Mac. If I download the item on any iOS device, then the item cannot be dowloaded on any other Mac.

I wonder if these reproduce the issues to other people.

Quite curious and annoying issue. Even more annoying that Apple shows no hint of fixing this issue.

I get the same "An unknown error has occurred" message as Carter Bullard. This response occurs when I click on a non-downloaded, but previously purchased book with the cloud icon. If I click on a purchased book that is already on my computer, then I get an authorization request message, but then nothing happens when I fill it in.

I've de-authorized and re-authorized my computer with no beneficial impact. Same results every time. I've tried to delete the Books folder suggested as a working solution, but this did not help in my case. I ran the permissions checker in Disk Utility and it reported a ton of issues with iBooks for Mac components. I then had it repair these issues, but that didn't help either.

This program represents very shoddy workmanship from Apple. They took heat for the IOS Maps rollout, but I think iBooks for Mac is a far bigger insult to customers than Maps. Moving books from iTunes to a deeply hidden directory. Changing file names to cryptic IDs. Not allowing customers to decide the path and drive where they would like to store the books. The limited display and formatting choices (limited selection makes some sense on an iPad, not so much on a 27" iMac). The bug ridden Apple Store / DRM / authorization model (one would think they could have had an iTunes developer peer review their authorization code). The buggy syncing. It just goes on and on.

Thank you for this. After accidentally adding a folder containing a thousand files, I desperately mucked around, trying to delete the files, to no avail. Your method was able to reset my library (luckily, I had done no organization of books at this point).

Hello i just want to write here also my solution.

The Problematic computer was iMac (with the 10.9.3)

After my update 10.9.3, it was problem to open iBooks & Preview, they do not opened at all.

So....

I saw lot of solutions but nothing works.

So here it is my solution.

This solution is only if You have another Mac with the prevous version 10.9.2.

So i have MiniMac.

Solution about iBooks

Part 1 First Back Up Your files

1.Before anything go to search on the right side

2.Write iBook

3.Click on it.

4.There is folder called Books

4.Copy this folder (This will be Your back up with everything that You have till now)

save it in another place not in this directory.

Part 2

I use AppCleaner to erase all files complete, in the directory.

So i drag the iBooks into the AppCleaner.

And just erase it at all.

Part 3 Transfer the working app from the another computer (MiniMac)

1.I just drag my iBooks app from the MiniMac to my iMac.

2.After i opened the transfered new iBooks from my MiniMac, yes it works.

Part 4 Put Back the backed files

1.Again go to search folder iBooks

2.Click on it and look for folder Books

3.Click on it

4.Than copy all files from Part 1 point 4 into it.

Part 5 Restart Your computer

Well Done

About the Preview i drag it as iBooks.

I was trying to erase the problem old Preview app, it but i can't because its part from OSX.

So go to the Application folder and create new folder and give the name Preview Working,

than drag the Transfered App from MiniMac into.

Than drag it to have on the desktop, to open new files the preview must to be open.

At least hope till next update, hope will be fixed in the next update.

Anyway will be happy to help to somebody with this.

I am on my iPad just trying to read a book like I have always done. iOS is current. Can't download and can't delete. I am not going to delete my entire library. I have restarted, quit all apps, logged out/in of iCloud and iTunes but no go. Not syncing as I don't sync iPad to compute the. Very frustrated and unhappy with Apple. This is not the user experience that I have had in the past.

I had problem too and test anything to fix it. If i'm right the situation is:

in the past the ibook files are under iTunes control beneath the iTunes main folder, typically "Books" or "iBooks". Now, with the new 'iBooks Application" Books are switched to "~Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/ibooks". But, here comes the error.

In my case the folder "~Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/ibooks" was "~Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/BOOKS". Normally, if you delete the folder "BKAgentService' and start iBooks again, the application should restore the subfolder and organisation of your library. In my case, nothing happens, the folder BKAgentService was empty, the iBook-Application crashed.

The good thing is, my old book folder (under itunes) exists, all my books (purchased, or free pdfs) exists too.

The good thing too is, your icloud/apple account should know all our purchased book (in my case where are 20).

I find a way, to completely delete iBooks and all related files and make a clean reinstall. After that, it needed some time to reload the purchased books but it works for me.

Hi same problem as someone message "An unknown error has occurred", when i try to download an eBook have cloud symbol ;(

work on iOS i can download, account is right, only append on my MAC (OS X 10.9.3)

Regards,

Same problem here with 10.9.3, no downloads allowed allways with error "unknow error".

Tried almost posted solutions without success but it seems to be fixed with the following steps:

1. Make a copy of iBooks application (copy from /Applications/iBooks to /Applications/iBooks.orig)

2. Use AppCleaner and do a fully uninstall on iBooks by dragging application to AppCleaner window.

3. Remove ibooks library folder by moving it to another place as backup

on command line write:

mv ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Data/Documents/ibooks ~/ibooks.orig

4. Remove SC Info folder by moving it to another place

mv /Users/Shared/SC\ Info /Users/Shared/SC\ Info.orig

Restore iBooks.orig to iBooks and start it.

Hi @pauloamgomes it's work nice, books donwloaded !!!

but other thing it's possible may cause issue

i have redirect my /Users/Shared from OS Drive to other partition.

I move to initial place and do step by step what you write.

And it's done !

Very best regards,

Cedric

Hi Cedric, great that it worked also for you, and in my case I had also /Users folder on other drive, may be the cause of the issue, but not sure.

I also get some read/write error messages on /var/system.log during iBooks initialization but all folders used by iBooks seem to have right permissions!

Best Regards,

Paulo

Thank you, fixed my issue, too.

SDG

OK uninstall iBooks thenrestart your computer. Then reinstall iBooks and it will work. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂