Gene Surber

Q: Major iBooks Problems

I have had on-going problems with iBooks. I have over 1600 iBooks. I have them all in particular collections. In the past, the arrangement of books within collections would transfer from one device to another (e.g., changes on my iPhone would be reflected on my iPad.). This has been my major reason for using the iPad, and iBooks.

 

Most of my iBooks have been converted by Calibre. I also have some PDF's. With the release of iOS 8, my synced iBooks would copy to my devices, but then would delete themselves when I opened iBooks. I was finally able to resolve this issue. However, shortly thereafter, using OS Yosemite I noticed that every time I plugged my devices in to sync them, that the "Sync all books" would change to "sync some books." Regardless of what I did, my preference for sync all books would not save. iTunes would then delete every book on the device only to recopy all of them onto it again. This made the syncing process quite arduous.

 

I read somewhere that some ebooks may be problematic with iBooks, so updating them through the latest version of Calibre was recommended. So I did this.

 

Now, I have had to restore both my iPhone and my iPad in order to get my collections to sync. They still don't sync from iBooks on the Mac computer in the same order of arrangement within the collections, nor is the arrangement affected by arrangements on either device to the other. In addition to this, while initially after the restore I was able to get the books assigned in each collection to copy to the devices, if I add a book that book is not copied into the collection, but rather into the general "Books" or "All books." (YES I have sync collections turned on for all devices and the main iBooks on the computer).

 

I called Tech support some time ago and they denied that iBooks ever sorted books within collections. I am almost certain this is incorrect as I was able to do it. And this article iBooks: Tips for managing your iBooks library and storage on iOS devices - Apple Support appears to support my recollection.

 

Is anyone else having the same problem and if so, have you been able to find a fix? I am about to pull my hair out.

iPad 2, iOS 8.3

Posted on Aug 9, 2015 7:01 PM