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Amazon: Older Kindles can no longer download e-books (www.heise.de)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 104 points 7 months ago (21 children)

lol i already jailbroke my 2012 paperwhite and intstalled Koreader on it so I can sync it with my calibre epub library over wifi

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  • [–] 23 points 7 months ago (17 children)

    It's a pity Calibre to date refuses to be refactored into a self-hosted service.

    The core logic should be portable, with the app just being an interface to it, but no, the entire project is so much spaghetti it would feed the entire boot for over a year... such a shame.

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  • [–] 13 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Agree, though calibre-web exists and runs in a single Docker container. I've been using it for a few years, and it's great.

    Sure its a whole Linux server under the hood just to run Calibre and the services required to give it a web interface and API for reading apps - making it way bigger than it needs to be - but it does the job.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago

    A docker container is preferred, but again, CW isn't Calibre. Same database but completely different management system + also lacking a lot of the sync opportunities.

    The issue is that there's no open protocol for library syncing. It doesn't exist because all big players (Amazon, Kobo/Rakuten, B&N, etc.) have their own proprietary system, and need no open alternatives.

    OPDS is a thing but it's meant to replicate a physical library (one you can walk into) in behaviour and approach, not a personal library (list all books I have and give me easy access to them). It's essentially just an RSS-style feed that has no defined structure, thus isn't software navigable - e.g. there's no guarantee you can list all book series, or all authors, and most implementations usually give you very roughly defined "recently added", or "hot now" book lists...

    I've actually been working on a solution for this, something that provides an almost Kindle library experience (see all your books from a remote server, sync down the remote ebook file, sync back read progress, filter/search based on book properties, etc.), while being flexible enough for non-readers applications as well. But I haven't even gotten to the point where I can define the API contract properly, let alone the backing database and mapping to Calibre. Honestly at this stage I feel like the best approach is starting from scratch, establishing modern requirements, and going from there.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (13 children)

    I switched. Kavita is the new hotness.

    I found it for comics, but realized it handled books as well as Caliber does, in a modern interface with OPDS support.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (8 children)

    I tried Kavita and immediately recoiled at the fact that basic features like progress sync or metadata matching are behind a paywall - literally features that don't cost the developers anything, while having open, active bug reports going back a year on these "premium" features.

    All while licensing the code under GPLv3...

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (7 children)

    Progress sync works fine for me in KOReader with OPDS. Progress Sync Scrobble (to third-parties) is the Kavita+ feature.

    My understanding was the Kavita+ items are things to do with third-party services and meta data providers that are an API/cost-based service to the dev. That being said I don't use any of those features.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (6 children)

    OPDS doesn't do progress sync, at all... you're running something else there if that works for you.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (5 children)

    https://anansi-project.github.io/docs/opds-pse/specs/v1.2

    They use the PS extension. I believe Komga and Kavita maintain the spec now. Reader support for Kavita specifically is in the Wiki.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (4 children)

    PSE is page streaming, not progress sync...

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (3 children)

    PSE is a protocol, how information is used on each side of that protocol is at the developers discretion.

    pse:lastRead="10"
pse:lastReadDate="2010-01-10T10:01:11Z"
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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    which is fucking useless for actual progress sync of books because it doesn't handle concurrency (multiple readers reading the same content, potentially offline), and more importantly, modern ebook formats have no concept of "page" in transit. Oh, you read page 10? Awesome! Now do tell, is it page 10 on a 5" 800x480 eink display with 48px font size and giant margins/lineheights/word paddings, or is it page 10 on a 13" display of 2480x1860 resolution with 11px font size and barely any margins? Since you'll get wildly different results in both cases, and OPDS doesn't really allow for adapting this simple integer to a precise position.

    No, for that you require a proper locator scheme, something OPDS doesn't provide and cannot enforce.

    Page based progress is fine for fixed format publications - comics, PDF/DOCX files, etc., but that approach breaks irreparably the moment you switch to dynamically formatted content. In case of EPUV/MOBI/the various Kindle formats, you want to determine the reader's position based on the first and last paragraph/sentence visible on the reader and correlate that to a position within the actual files of the book, which is actually dynamic, as it can be resolved regardless if it's XML formatted EPUB or if you dumbed the book down to a simple TXT file.

    So no, OPDS's PSE is at best a stopgap solution for syncing progress.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    doesn't handle concurrency

    Kavita is multiuser, each with their own progress sync. https://wiki.kavitareader.com/getting-started/

    Now do tell, is it page 10 on a 5" 800x480 eink display with 48px font size and giant margins/lineheights/word paddings, or is it page 10 on a 13" display of 2480x1860 resolution with 11px font size and barely any margins

    Again, it's a protocol and developer discression can be used. Page 10 could be word 10, or word 1000/avg 10 words = 10. PSE can be used to store progress, without needing to request the page because the eBook is local. It could be any API format.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    by concurrency I meant multiple devices of the same user, not multiple users. I don't know why you'd even consider that I think other users' progress should be exposed on a single call?

    and yet again, that progress doesn't mean anything when you base it on a number. locator patterns that find the SECTION you're in based on first-last word (or rather, sentence, for actual precision) are the way to go. you can try hacking this simplified protocol as much as you want, it will never work as well as a dedicated one.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (3 children)

    I've looked into Kavita before and it looks good, just need to figure out a way I can wirelessly connect to it using KOreader on my Kindle to transfer books and sync reading progress

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

    The OPDS service works for me, just like on Calibre. I can browse my books from within KOReader.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    I see, that's good to hear, since KOreader has a direct integration with Calibre, when I connect it to my server it shows up as a external device in Calibre and I can select multiple books in Calibre and directly send to the Kindle in one click which I find more convenient than navigating a OPDS catalog from within my slow kindle and downloading books one by one, but maybe in the future when I get a better e-reader I will give Kavita a try.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    My workflow is usually to add a book to my Want to Read list in Kavita, then on a reader I can go to that list through OPDS and browse just that list. Makes things much more managable assuming I don't spam the list.

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    • [–] 79 points 7 months ago

    So the product lineup is now called "Kindle Paperweight" instead?

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    [–] 66 points 7 months ago

    Weird.
    I didnt know my Calibre server stopped working.

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    [–] 30 points 7 months ago (15 children)

    I've been using raw text files for my books, sent locally over USB, and that's the way it's gonna stay until my reader craps out

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    can't you just load epub with calibre or another sync to? I'm pretty sure that's what I do because that's what I'm doing

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago

    IMO for personal use "drag and drop into the correct directory" is an infinitely better organisational system than tag based libraries, especially for pirated books. I'm not going to sync my books across 10 different devices since I don't need more than 1 reader, so it doesn't make any sense for me to waste time using tags, let alone fix them for every book I download.

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  • [–] 0 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    I've tried that in the past, but it doesn't seem to care how the epub is put on it, it always displays epubs horribly

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (1 child)

    are you doing something to convert to epub from another format? i don't have the issue you're describing when loading epub directly or when converting from mobi with calibre. the format is dynamic unlike PDF, so the font size and page width shouldn't be fixed like that. it should look and behave pretty much like kindle mobi or your text files

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  • [–] 10 points 7 months ago* (7 children)

    There's not really any advantage of using txt files over open standard drm-free epubs. You can still generate them yourself using txt editors or publishing software, you can still load them over USB. But epubs give you quality of life features on eReaders like title pages, table of contents, chapter headers, formatting markers like bold and italics.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (6 children)

    My reader formats epubs really terribly, the text is almost always way too small, and requires some grotesque horizontal scrolling for most books.

    On the other hand .txt just works, and handles resizing just fine

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    • [–] 31 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Jailbreaking and never turning airplane mode off has been the best decision I made with my kindle. Download from zlibrary, transfer to folder on kindle, done

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    • [–] 30 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    As far as I know, it might still work with Calibre

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  • [–] 13 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    This is about the Kindle Store. Calibre will continue to work, it just copies files via USB, you don't even need Calibre for that.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago* (3 children)

    Can books be transfered via USB even on the 2013-era Paperwhite? I've always used the email feature in Calibre-web to send books to my Kindle (even for books I've paid for) - I didn't realise it was doable over USB!

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    [–] 46 points 7 months ago (14 children)

    Say it with me kids, “This is why we pirate digital media from billion dollar corporations”

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  • [–] 22 points 7 months ago (13 children)

    this is also why i started buying physical books and using my local public library again.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (11 children)

    My local library allows borrowing ebooks. It's incredibly useful. I own two kindles and haven't spent a dime at Amazon for ebooks. I do buy physical books now and then from there, but only if I really need it and can't find elsewhere.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (10 children)

    How do you return a borrowed ebook..?

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (9 children)

    It expires after two weeks. You can extend, just like borrowing a physical copy. Or return early, in which case it expires upon return.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (8 children)

    I mean, yeah, sure, I guess that's a decent solutions in terms of modern IP shit.

    But like, we all know you're not returning anything and if you wanted, you could also copy it for yourself.

    I just dislike how it feels like when it was actually books, they had actual reasons to everything. There's a queue because there's limited copies. You need to return it and if you're late there's a fee, because it's from other people's time, etc. Nowadays that all feels like larping just to protect large companies IP's essentially. Because digital copies don't actually get returned.

    Like when I was a kid I would've never thought a librarian would say "you're not allowed to read that anymore". Or that I couldn't copy a thing down at home from one of their books. But now as your tokens to ebooks expire, it kinda does feel like that.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    I find ebooks from the library to be very useful.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (4 children)

    I'm not saying they're not, or that the librarians are any more capitalist than they were in the 90's. I'm just saying it feels like they are.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Big Library is not out to get you. They need to not piss off Big Publisher.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    No no, Big Library just isn't Big enough to stick it to Big IP, so that's why it seems like it even though I know librarians are still much the same.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    My best friend is a librarian, and they've stopped buying ebook licenses because the terms were awful.

    The publishers only allowed an ebook to be checked out a few times before the library had to purchase a license extension. The argument was that pylhysical books face wear and tear and eventually have to be replaced, so ebooks should have to be replaced too.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    It's true that normal books do experience wear and tear, but looking at what my local library has I'd say that many or most can still least many years before needing to be retired or replaced.

    As we're seeing with Amazon, with ebooks it's really the readers that expire over time

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    • [–] 19 points 7 months ago

    The magic word is Calibre

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    [–] 16 points 7 months ago (11 children)

    Got my wife a Kobo for her birthday to replace her aging Kindle. She’s bought 1 book so far and gonna look at the Library integration.

    Anyone got any tips for ways to use the Kobo? For example I have Calibre on my Mac and have used that to copy books I’ve “acquired” for her, is there any benefit in self hosting Calibre? Is it possible to get her Kindle books on the Kobo or is the DRM a nightmare nowadays?

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Is it possible to get her Kindle books on the Kobo or is the DRM a nightmare nowadays?

    Calibre has a plugin for that: DeDRM

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    does it still work? even when I used it last you had to do some janky shit like download a specific version of kindle pc app and use that to download the book for the first time or the book would be downloaded with newer drm and stuck that way forever, and get the file from the old kindle pc app into dedrm

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    you can interface with calibre web via opds from eBook readers. basically you can browse and download books in your calibre server. I use koreader to do it. as for previous books she's interested in I'd just look for them in the electronic library

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (3 children)

    You got any more specific info on how to do this? I spun up my caliber web container on my home server, but once I realized you can’t download books over the wifi, you still had to connect to a PC, I stopped hosting it.

    What ebook readers are capable of this magic?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    Any Kobo can install KOReader with a minor firmware update (that only needs to be done once). There’s instructions here: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/Installation-on-Kobo-devices It supports OPDS out of the box (though IMO is a little unintuitive to use)

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    koreader is an android app, for e-book readers based on android.

    https://koreader.rocks/

    from what I've read it can be installed on the kobo (may need root)

    here's a picture of how to set up koreader

    https://wotaku.wiki/guides/manga/opds

    the only thing to mind is that the opds address is not the calibre web one but <calibre address>/opds if I'm not wrong.

    Also my calibre web does have a download button for the ebooks so if there is a browser on the kobo you should be able to download them. Are you using "calibre web" or "calibre" web?

    https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    Ive been converting some pdfs to epub for the kobo and that has worked great. Its not perfect but gives a better experience than pdf. Ive also put some solo card game rules on there so a deck of cards and the kobo gives another fun on the go activity.

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    • [–] 16 points 7 months ago

    So, I cannot buy new books or download my current ones. But, I can download them without paying and then install them still over USB? OK Amazon, that clears things up fine for me.

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    [–] 16 points 7 months ago

    My second-hand, old as hell, button-only kindle has never downloaded any book from Amazon since I got it. Only Calibre.

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    [–] 16 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Funny, my old kindle seems to be downloading e-books just fine from my self-hosted server.

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    • [–] 15 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    My older Kindle is jailbroken and does just fine. Jailbreak if you can, if you can't don't Kindle.

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    • [–] 15 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Good job me never ever having bought any books on amazon. I go out of my way to buy them DRM free. Good old Paperwhite Gen 1 still going strong here.

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    • [–] 14 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Mine couldn't for some time now. You can't download them as files and transfer them. Amazon has become unusable for books at this point.

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  • [–] 15 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    It's crazy to think that Amazon literally started as a book store.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    Yay, enshittification

    Not to mention the super abusive stance of Amazon to writers and publishers, the sooner people stop buying Kindles and giving Amazon their money, the better.

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    • [–] 12 points 7 months ago

    Yet another reason to not buy Kindle.

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    [–] 12 points 7 months ago

    I've started to realize that early gen products are often less enshittified, even if they are frequently rough around the edges, and can often be hacked into a useful state unlike the newest hardware. By a few gens in, nearly everything is a giant plastic paperweight that only wants to phone home, download "updates" all the time, and probably needs multiple SSO sign ins and a subscription just to work. I'll keep my old Kindle 4th gen with KOreader until it breaks.

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    [–] 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Kobo gang where you at?

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    • [–] 10 points 7 months ago

    I have a kindle that I've had for ages. It has been jailbroken for a while and I've been loading my own epubs onto it. They make it easy with the 1 click send to kindle stuff but that locks you in to their ecosystem.

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