iTunes and iBook sync problem

M

MacInWin

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I don't know if this belongs in this forum, or the IOS forum or what, but here's my issue.

I have the latest version of Mavericks on my MBP, the latest version of iTunes and the latest version of IOS on my iPhone 5s and iPad. I have 65 ebooks in iBooks (also fully updated). I moved my iTunes folder to a second drive by copying the Music folder from my Home directory to the second drive, then amending iTunes preferences to point to the new location. All my music, podcasts and apps are just fine and syncing with my iPhone works well.

But I have problems when syncing the ebooks. There are two books that will NOT sync to my iPhone because iTunes says it cannot find the files, and one additional book that will not sync to my iPad (for a total of three) for the same reason. But the books are visible in iTunes, iBooks on my MBP can open them just fine, and they are already ON the iPad and iPhone. I tried re-downloading them from the iBooks store to the MBP, and to the iPhone and iPad, and that seemed to work. But iTunes still reports them as missing and won't sync them.

It's not fatal, but annoying to get a pop-up window with that report when I sync.

Any hints on how to get iTunes to find the missing books? With Music and Podcasts you can point to where the missing files are and iTunes updates, but I cannot find that function in the books section. All I can see are the 65 covers, including the so-called "missing" three.
 
OP
M

MacInWin

Guest
430 looks and not one comment? Have I stumped the forum! Is there a prize for that?
 

chscag

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@Jake:

Don't be fooled by the 430 looks. Those include Google searches and other search engine looks. However, it does appear that your problem may have stumped some of our users including me. ;)
 
OP
M

MacInWin

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Dang! I thought I was on the way to a record. The books are still not syncing, but I'm getting used to dismissing the warning at the end of the sync. Maybe I'll just read the three books and trash them.
 

bobtomay

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Not done any experimenting with iBooks since I use Amazon. Only thinking out loud...

What about moving the pref file for iBooks and see if it creates a new one - don't know that it will. Don't trash it so you can move it back if it doesn't work. Move it to desktop, then open iBooks, quit iBooks, then try to sync. It's at:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.BKAgentService/Container.plist

For all I know this could totally screw up iBooks...

edit:
Actually have about 10 books in there - I tried moving that file out. iBooks still seems to work just fine and it did not create a new Container.plist even after changing a couple of preferences - so I'm not sure what that file does.

I tried moving the books.plist file a little deeper in that folder - it didn't do anything or create a new one either.


With only 2-3 books being affected - I would have to guess though it's the file itself causing the issue - either a bad download or something wrong with the file itself when Apple created it causing the issue.
 
OP
M

MacInWin

Guest
I doubt it's the file. The three books open fine in iBooks on my iPad, iPhone and MBP. It's just that when iTunes syncs, it fails to find those three books. They are in the same location as the other books, so it should find them. Unfortunately, I cannot find a way to see where iTunes is looking because unlike music files, there is no "Show in Finder" for ebooks. I'd just tell it to stop syncing ebooks, but when I uncheck the box for syncing ebooks, it warns that on next sync it will delete all the books on the iPhone/iPad, which I do not want.
 
OP
M

MacInWin

Guest
Just for grins and giggles, I changed from All Books to Selected Books and deselected the three miscreants. When I synced my iPhone, iTunes sync'ed EVERY SONG in my library, taking forever, and then deleted the three books I had deselected. I then downloaded them to my iPhone directly from the Store again and sync'ed, but the books were NOT sync'ed back up to iTunes. So now, I'm not getting the error message, iTunes doesn't know about the three books and all my music is refreshed.

I then sync'ed my iPad, again deselecting the three miscreant books. This time the music files were NOT completely copied, but no error message. Curiously, iTunes reports that there are 62 books on the iPhone, but only 52 books on the iPad. In iBooks, the iPhone shows 54 books and the iPad 56 books, so nothing is really in sync.

Fun times in iTunes. It will be interesting to see how Apple deals with it in future releases.
 

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