Books disappearing

[RetiredinVA]

I don't know if this is on the correct thread, but I just updated my iPad to iOS5, and now, many of the books I have in my library (I use the iPad as a book reader most often) do not have the cover art they had before I upgraded the software. The are does show up in the iTunes library, but not on the iPad. How do I get the art back, as I am exploring what else I can do with iOS5?

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

I don't know if this is on the correct thread, but I just updated my iPad to iOS5, and now, many of the books I have in my library (I use the iPad as a book reader most often) do not have the cover art they had before I upgraded the software. The are does show up in the iTunes library, but not on the iPad. How do I get the art back, as I am exploring what else I can do with iOS5?

I've moved this to the iOS section as it's not a 'Tip or Trick'

Tim

 

[twerppoet]

Try restarting or reseting the iPad. That may help. You can also delete and re-download any book that your purchased through the iBooks Store (free).


Restart: Hold down the power button until the power off slider appears. Slide it off. When the iPad finishes shutting down, hold down the power button again until the Apple logo appears.

and then a reset if that does not work.

Reset: Hold down the power and home buttons until the Apple logo appears. The iPad will reboot. This usually takes a bit longer than a restart.

 

[RetiredinVA]

Thanks, but it did not work. I tried both, and then did another synch with iTunes. The books show up in the iTunes library with cover art, but about 20 of them are on the iPad, but without the cover art. It just looks stupid since the other 50 or so books have the cover art. Also, I have noticed that when I synch the iPad and computer, it no longer says "OK to disconnect" when the synch is over. Is that an effect of iOS5 as well?

 

[twerppoet]

Ok, here are two other things you can try.

You can manually add cover art in iTunes. I do this all the time for the Gutenberg books, to replace the boring default covers. Select the book in iTunes on the computer. Find a cover you like on the web using Google's image search, then copy&paste (or drag) the artwork onto the album cover at the lower left of the iTunes window.

Sometimes that won't work, because there is already artwork loaded. You can't always tell by looking at the album cover, because apparently there are two ways o store a cover for an ePub, and only one of then is direclty supported by iTunes. In that case right click on the book and choose Get Info. Go to the Artwork tab, delete the curent artwork and paste your own. Unlike music tracks books can only store on picture here. In my experience this artwork always supersedes the art embedded in the ePub.

Next time you sync with iTunes, the book cover should be replaced.

The other option is to delete the book on the iPad and in iTunes, then go to the iBooks Store and download it again directly to the iPad. Deleting if from iTunes should prevent it from syncing back to the iPad the next time you sync.

Hope one of these works for you.

 

[RetiredinVA]

I generally do get my cover art by going to Google images. I get books from lots of places and people, not just from iBooks, so the store is not really an option. I also borrow them from libraries. So, the art is in place in my iTunes list of books, but it does not transfer to the iPad, now that it has disappeared for some books since I changed to iOS5. Re-synching does not change anything. I have added some new books, and the art transferred fine for those. But, I have not tried deleting the old books from both places and reloading them. That might well work. I'll try it first with one I have already read. Thanks.

 

[twerppoet]

Ok. Hope it works for you.

 

[candirisk]

I don't know if this is on the correct thread, but I just updated my iPad to iOS5, and now, many of the books I have in my library (I use the iPad as a book reader most often) do not have the cover art they had before I upgraded the software. The are does show up in the iTunes library, but not on the iPad. How do I get the art back, as I am exploring what else I can do with iOS5?

This is exactly what has happened to me. Will try the suggested solutions.

 

[verwon]

I had this problem, but removing them from my iPad and resyncing fixed it.


Sent from my iOS ecosystem!

 

[candirisk]

Thank you, I have now done the same and all the covers are back. I appreciate your help with this.

 

[RetiredinVA]

Thank you, I have now done the same and all the covers are back. I appreciate your help with this.

I am glad it worked for candirisk, but it it did not work for me. I removed a couple of books from the iPad, and then resynched. I did this at the same time I was adding a new book I had just gotten. The new book was fine, and the cover art I got from the internet is perfect. The old book appeared again on the iPad, but it did not have the cover art. When I go to my iTunes library, the art is there, standing tall and proud. Quite a puzzlement.

 

[twerppoet]

Don't re-sync.

Delete the Book from the iPad, then visit the iBooks Store in iBooks, go to the Purchased tab at the bottom, and re-download the book directly to the iPad. This will only work with iBook Store purchases, obviously.

 

[candirisk]

Ooo how frustrating. Many of my books are not from the iBook store so what I did was delete them from my ipad AND then I also deleted them from iTunes, (having kept copies elsewhere of course!). Then I re-loaded them into iTunes and then synched onto the iPad and hey presto...it was a bit of a perfromance mind you!

 

[RetiredinVA]

Ok, That did it, and it worked. It is a bit of a pain, but it works if you care about the cover art. In detail, here is what I did. I went to the folder on my computer where all the books are stored. It is in the home folder (a little house on my Mac). Then, I opened the "Music" file. Inside that, I opened "iTunes Media" and then "books". In that folder are all the books I have ever downloaded, sorted by author. They get put in there automatically by iTunes, I guess, I did not set up the folder.

To be safe (since iTunes put them there, it could probably remove it, as well), I moved the files with the books with no cover art to the desktop. Then, I opened iTunes and deleted the books from the library. I then removed the same books from the iPad library.

Going back to iTunes, I added the books on the desktop to the iTunes library. They came with the cover art I had previously, so I did not have to get it from Google again. Then, I synched my iPad, and the books, with cover art, appeared again in all their glory. By the way, after adding the books, the ones I had removed from the iTunes media file we placed back in there again by iTunes.

Thank you to all who helped out with this rather annoying issue.

 

[twerppoet]

Glad you got it fixed. No idea why you had to go to that extent but at least it worked.