StoneSoup

Q: How to undo an iBooks conversion and revert back to iTunes

Apple listens if enough people complain.  If you hate the current implementation of iBooks, send Apple feedback here:

 

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ibooks.html

 

 

I'm starting this thread as a central place to collect ways of either:

 

A. Preventing a conversion from iTunes to iBooks

 

B. Reverting back to iTunes after a conversion

 

Here's what I've seen in the community so far:

 

Kevin Edgecomb's solution for reverting back:

 

Re: Not impressed! No edit info, no library management!

 

Andy Epprecht's solution for reverting back, building on Kevin's:

 

Re: Not impressed! No edit info, no library management!

 

Any other solutions for prevention or reversion?

Posted on Oct 26, 2013 8:06 PM

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Q: How to undo an iBooks conversion and revert back to iTunes

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  • by RolandGosebruch,

    RolandGosebruch RolandGosebruch Jul 3, 2015 11:45 PM in response to Andy Epprecht
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 3, 2015 11:45 PM in response to Andy Epprecht

    No luck importing PDFs via Cmd-O or Drag and Drop into the "My PDFs" section. iTunes simply refuses to recognize any PDFs. It sees, however, the PDFs on my iPad in the "Books" section of the "On My Device" sidebar area.

  • by Andy Epprecht,

    Andy Epprecht Andy Epprecht Jul 3, 2015 11:51 PM in response to RolandGosebruch
    Level 1 (54 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 3, 2015 11:51 PM in response to RolandGosebruch

    DId you follow my advice? Without you telling us what you did we cannot help you.

     

    I had the same (PDFs not back in iTunes, just Books and Audiobooks) on one out of 3 Macs and I solved it by doing the above mentionned iTunes Library restore.

  • by RolandGosebruch,

    RolandGosebruch RolandGosebruch Jul 4, 2015 12:11 AM in response to Andy Epprecht
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 4, 2015 12:11 AM in response to Andy Epprecht

    Duh. Itseems I didn't. Sorry for the additional trouble. I opened iTunes with the saved library from yesterday evening (right before the iTunes update) and the PDFs are back.

     

    Thank you very much.

  • by Mark Armitage,

    Mark Armitage Mark Armitage Jul 4, 2015 3:02 PM in response to RolandGosebruch
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Jul 4, 2015 3:02 PM in response to RolandGosebruch

    Odd, just looked at mine and it has sections for Audio, eBook and PDF's. I didn't do anything other than upgrade and redo my procedure so not sure what the problem is.

     

    Screen Shot 2015-07-04 at 22.54.59.png

     

    Current process I use is:

     

    osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to quit'

    pkill com.apple.BKAgentService

    sudo rm -r /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BookKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com. apple.BKAgentService.xpc

     

    [remove iBooks with AppZapper or similar utility, you may need to enable deleting Apple apps in the preferences]

     

    rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService

    rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX

    sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*

    open /Applications/iTunes.app

     

    As always, it is worth ensuring you have a backup using something like SuperDuper or CCC first just in case something goes awry.

  • by hairynosedwombat,

    hairynosedwombat hairynosedwombat Jul 16, 2015 12:36 AM in response to DavidK44
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 16, 2015 12:36 AM in response to DavidK44

    Well it finally worked for me...sort of. I tried several methods recommended which in summary was:

    1. Killed book agent (was't running ...but even so).
    2. Copied iBooks, all the data files, 2 x Prefs files & the /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BookKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com. apple.BKAgentService.xpc + /Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService + /Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX to an external drive via Finder.
    3. Used AppZapp to delete iBooks & /Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX but had to use Finder to delete the rest.
    4. Restarted & iTunes still wouldn't recognise the Books (even though there was still a Books folder in the iTunes Music library).
    5. Removed iTunes Helper from my Account Login Startup items.
    6. Deleted the entire content of my Music/iTunes folder & replaced it with a backup from a few days earlier just before I upgraded to Yosemite (from Mountain Lion).
    7. Restarted & iTunes still wouldn't recognise the Books.
    8. Then I had a light bulb moment & physically disconnected the external drive where I had copied all the iBooks stuff in pt 2 above; restarted & lo & behold iTunes suddenly found all my books.
    9. I "double-proved" this theory by quitting iTunes, reconnecting the external hard drive, reopening iTunes only to find the books had disappeared again & iTunes was once again telling me to convert them to iBooks.
    10. So I've now got rid of all the old iBooks files (actually copied them off to yet another external drive which I hardly ever turn on).

     

    I haven't tried to import more ePubs just yet or upload to my iPad...will do that tomorrow & see how I go.

     

    1 issue I have as well is that when I try to use the Authors view in iTunes, it hangs; have to Force Quit, but the Books & Book List views seem to work OK now even though the View dropdown still refers to 'Audiobooks'.

  • by the_bento,

    the_bento the_bento Aug 6, 2015 2:51 AM in response to Andy Epprecht
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 6, 2015 2:51 AM in response to Andy Epprecht

    Agreed! It really puzzles me whoever who came up with this even use a Mac to start with.

     

    It just doesn't make any sense at all. I sincerely hope Apple would wake up.

  • by StoneSoup,

    StoneSoup StoneSoup Aug 15, 2015 12:40 PM in response to Mark Armitage
    Level 1 (45 points)
    Aug 15, 2015 12:40 PM in response to Mark Armitage

    In case anyone's wondering, the gold standard of Mark's approach works for the latest iTunes 12.2.2.25, too.

  • by craigriches,

    craigriches craigriches Oct 1, 2015 2:05 AM in response to Mark Armitage
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 1, 2015 2:05 AM in response to Mark Armitage

    Mark, I am running latest version of Itunes and now 10.11 El Capitan, but I have noticed if I try to trash

    1. delete /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BookKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com. apple.BKAgentService.xpc

    I get a message that I can't because “com.apple.BKAgentService.xpc” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by OS X


    Never saw that previously. Have you any suggestions how I can override this so i can get my books/pdfs back again into Itunes.

    I am guessing that this is something new with El Capitan, because Yosemite didnt cause this issue. But I did read that iBooks wasnt one of the securely protected apps recently online. Maybe that is incorrect also?


    Regards

    Craig

  • by Xyzzy42,

    Xyzzy42 Xyzzy42 Oct 1, 2015 11:57 AM in response to craigriches
    Level 1 (50 points)
    Oct 1, 2015 11:57 AM in response to craigriches

    Question: did you see a permissions or authentication box pop up asking for your system password?

  • by craigriches,

    craigriches craigriches Oct 4, 2015 1:43 AM in response to Xyzzy42
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 4, 2015 1:43 AM in response to Xyzzy42

    Hi there,

    No permission prompt, just a message box saying it could not delete it as it was an OS X system required file

    “com.apple.BKAgentService.xpc” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by OS X

    I should say I was going into the relevant folder and selecting the file to then try to Trash it, rather than conducting the the instructions to run from within Terminal.

    I would be interested to see if anyone has been successful in return their books to Itunes since updating both Itunes and OS X to El Capitan official release.

  • by craigriches,

    craigriches craigriches Oct 4, 2015 1:49 AM in response to Xyzzy42
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 4, 2015 1:49 AM in response to Xyzzy42

    I wondered if there was a block to the deletion of the file caused by the new SIP (System Integrity Protection) built into El Capitan?

    http://www.macworld.com/article/2948140/os-x/private-i-el-capitans-system-integr ity-protection-will-shift-utilities-func…

  • by craigriches,

    craigriches craigriches Oct 4, 2015 2:45 AM in response to Xyzzy42
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 4, 2015 2:45 AM in response to Xyzzy42

    I can confirm that the problem is caused by the new SIP (System Integrity Protection) built into El Capitan. I had been told before that iBooks was not affected at this level, but it would appear that Apple changed their minds on that one.

    So....

     

    1. quit iTunes
    2. kill the process com.apple.BKAgentService
    3. delete /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BookKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com. apple.BKAgentService.xpc
    4. use appzapper to remove iBooks
    5. delete ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService
    6. delete ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX
    7. empty the trash
    8. restart iTunes


    For me to action the instruction at stage 2., I had to disable SIP first.

    Boot into Recovery Mode using CMD + R, then select Utilities from top menu

    Select Terminal, and then type following and Enter

    csrutil disable

    Then Reboot system

    Then go back and try Stage 2. (I'm sure you can probably do all this from within Terminal in the first place, but I'm not that knowledgeable)

    Follow stages through until stage 7. I then rebooted again before trying Stage 8. just to be sure, and can report ALL IS BACK AND OK!!!

    ****By the way, I personally didn't find the listed item in stage 6. (maybe because I hadn't actually opened iBooks??)****

     

    For my own system safety, I then chose to boot back into Recovery mode using CMD + R, back into Terminal and then typed csrutil enable, to enable SIP again to protect from the potential nasties.

     

    Hope this helps anyone who has encountered problems since the recent El Capitan release.

  • by Mark Armitage,

    Mark Armitage Mark Armitage Oct 4, 2015 8:29 AM in response to StoneSoup
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 4, 2015 8:29 AM in response to StoneSoup

    In case anyone needs it. The process mostly still works on El Capitain and the latest iTunes.

     

    I say mostly as I can no longer do 'sudo rm -r /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BookKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com. apple.BKAgentService.xpc'

    but otherwise it is fine and iTunes still recognises my books.

     

     

    1. osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to quit'
    2. pkill com.apple.BKAgentService
    3. sudo rm -r /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BookKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com. apple.BKAgentService.xpc
    4. [remove iBooks with AppZapper or similar utility, you may need to enable deleting Apple apps in the preferences]
    5. rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService
    6. rm ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iBooksX
    7. sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*
    8. open /Applications/iTunes.app

     

    (Step 3 no longer works as OSX refuses to let me delete it, the purpose was to ensure that the service could not be restarted, so I use Simon from Dejal software and if the service is running it does steps 2,5 & 6. So far it's been fine and has not restarted itself, so maybe you could add the 'pkill' as a startup script)

     

    (Step 4 is manual, the rest can be done from the terminal)

     

    As always, it is worth ensuring you have a backup using something like SuperDuper or CCC first just in case something goes awry.

  • by craigriches,

    craigriches craigriches Oct 4, 2015 11:36 AM in response to Mark Armitage
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Apple TV
    Oct 4, 2015 11:36 AM in response to Mark Armitage

    Mark I found if you disable SIP as I have detailed in my last post, freedom to delete is returned.

  • by StoneSoup,

    StoneSoup StoneSoup Oct 5, 2015 6:59 PM in response to craigriches
    Level 1 (45 points)
    Oct 5, 2015 6:59 PM in response to craigriches

    Thanks, Craigriches!  Temporarily disabling SIP worked for me. 


    Excellent suggestion!

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