[Q] how to make nook think sideloaded was downloaded

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persichini

Senior Member
Dec 2, 2010
139
10
DFW
Has anyone looked into a way to make the nook think your sideloaded content was downloaded from B&N.. IS there some data base file that keeps record that we could edit? I'm sick of my sideloaded books lacking the functionality of the downloaded ones.. anyone have ideas on where to start?

Edit:
I found this on the nook tablet forum... BN Book Directory, Calibre, Cut&Paste, Library Covers

I moved a folder into /system/media/books and after stopping and restarting the Library app, the books within the folder did show up in the Library.

However after long-pressing the book, i noted Delete was not an option from the library.

Not a huge deal... if i want to delete them I can simply mount /system as rw, open ES File Explorer, and delete them.


Can anyone confirm that the /system/ location is actually on the B&N 12gb partition?


edit: this doesn't really resolve my secondary objective, of getting Magazines to show up in the Magazine tab of the Library (there is no /system/media/magazines!)

Has any tried placing books in the directory /data/media/b&n downloads/books/

Update:

ok so placing books in /system/media/books does allow it to show up in the library..
and you can read it

Still won't show meta information..
 
Last edited:

persichini

Senior Member
Dec 2, 2010
139
10
DFW
OK so I've found that the database looks to be here

/data/data/com.android.providers.media/databases/internal.db
/data/data/com.android.providers.downloads/databases/downloads.db <----- Looks more promising

I've looked at the file in notepad and can see the ISBN numbers listed in the file but i can't read it correctly ... what program should i use to edit this?

the books you download are names with the ISBN number... in the /data/media/B&N Downloads/Books/
Edit:
/data/data/com.android.providers.downloads/databases/downloads.db is defiantly the right file i just need help editing... it I've never done sqlite3 before
 
Last edited:

persichini

Senior Member
Dec 2, 2010
139
10
DFW
OK so I've found that the database looks to be here

/data/data/com.android.providers.media/databases/internal.db <----- Looks more promising

/data/data/com.android.providers.downloads/databases/downloads.db <----- deadend
I've figured out the sqlite thing....

Downloads didn't work....

Internal.db seems to have all the information.... It has a field for summary, author, what not.... So Meta info isn't used at all by the nook... its added per book base to the internal.db file.... bummer. I guess i'll add the info and see if it is recognized.

Looks like there might be alot of info needed from BN.com to make it work... ugh
 
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ApokrifX

Senior Member
May 23, 2011
468
50
Has anyone looked into a way to make the nook think your sideloaded content was downloaded from B&N.. IS there some data base file that keeps record that we could edit?
I’m sure B&N keeps info on their server too, and should sync it across all your devices (like the book page you are on). No idea how their sync works and what exactly being sync-ed.

I'm sick of my sideloaded books lacking the functionality of the downloaded ones.. anyone have ideas on where to start?
What is it you missing so badly? :confused:
 

persichini

Senior Member
Dec 2, 2010
139
10
DFW
I guess i'm to picky... I have 60 books that were suggested by people that i haven't read yet. I like to be able to read a summary before i start reading..

Is it just me or do the search functions not work like the they should? X-ray search doesn't seem to work like the advertisements.

Being able to mark a book as read... I like seeing my progress

Archiving books would also be nice.
 

ApokrifX

Senior Member
May 23, 2011
468
50
Ok, I see what you mean.
I don’t know where book summary is stored. Could be in a EPUB ifself?
I would start copying some book from /data/media/B&N Downloads/Books to SD card and check if you get a summary.
X-ray search – know nothing about it, sorry.

About Archiving - I guess, we supposed to be able to delete a book from nook and be able to download it later again (since B&N have a record that we bought it).
For side loading, we can create Archive folder.
I know, it’s not exactly archiving, but just trying to be helpful…
 

persichini

Senior Member
Dec 2, 2010
139
10
DFW
Ok, I see what you mean.
I don’t know where book summary is stored. Could be in a EPUB ifself?
I would start copying some book from /data/media/B&N Downloads/Books to SD card and check if you get a summary.

/data/data/com.android.providers.media/databases/internal.db

This is a database file that contains the book summary and all the other info. I guess when you download a book from B&N it updates this file.

I just haven't been able to update the file and get it to recognize.

X-ray search – know nothing about it, sorry.

About Archiving - I guess, we supposed to be able to delete a book from nook and be able to download it later again (since B&N have a record that we bought it).
For side loading, we can create Archive folder.
I know, it’s not exactly archiving, but just trying to be helpful…

I do know that by placing your books in '/system/media/books' folder you can use the B&N partition for your side loaded books you just have to reboot to recognize them. There is also no option to delete books once they are placed there. you would have to delete them with a file manager or over ADB
 

guitar_east

Senior Member
May 18, 2010
123
22
Pickering
I guess i'm to picky... I have 60 books that were suggested by people that i haven't read yet. I like to be able to read a summary before i start reading..

Is it just me or do the search functions not work like the they should? X-ray search doesn't seem to work like the advertisements.

Being able to mark a book as read... I like seeing my progress

Archiving books would also be nice.

X-Ray Search doesn't work? It shouldn't, that a Kindle feature.
 

met67

Senior Member
Apr 16, 2007
209
35
/data/data/com.android.providers.media/databases/internal.db

This is a database file that contains the book summary and all the other info. I guess when you download a book from B&N it updates this file.

I just haven't been able to update the file and get it to recognize.

I do know that by placing your books in '/system/media/books' folder you can use the B&N partition for your side loaded books you just have to reboot to recognize them. There is also no option to delete books once they are placed there. you would have to delete them with a file manager or over ADB

As far as I can tell, in the internal.db there are 2 different table, 'docs' for sideloaded books and 'products' for B&N books and the 'docs' table misses the short synopsis field used for the book summary.
So probably there is no way to have summary for sideloaded books...
 

ApokrifX

Senior Member
May 23, 2011
468
50
If we put book into /data/media/B&N Downloads/Books/ folder, it’ll go into 'docs' table for sideloaded books still, right?

BTW: How do you fiddle with databases such as internal.db?
Use adb to pull/push and fiddle on PC, or use adb shell to do it on nook?
 

met67

Senior Member
Apr 16, 2007
209
35
If we put book into /data/media/B&N Downloads/Books/ folder, it’ll go into 'docs' table for sideloaded books still, right?
IDK, never tried :)

BTW: How do you fiddle with databases such as internal.db?
Use adb to pull/push and fiddle on PC, or use adb shell to do it on nook?

Both, actually.
I use SQLiteStudio to browse data and definitions, and a copy of sqllite3 found on this forum to modify the DB on the device via adb shell
 

persichini

Senior Member
Dec 2, 2010
139
10
DFW
As far as I can tell, in the internal.db there are 2 different table, 'docs' for sideloaded books and 'products' for B&N books and the 'docs' table misses the short synopsis field used for the book summary.
So probably there is no way to have summary for sideloaded books...

Well my thoughts were why can't we just manually insert the books in the the "products" with the data fields filled in. i tried guessing at what all those fields were. I'm assuming it wasn't the correct info or didn't match the book some how because it didn't work.

If we put book into /data/media/B&N Downloads/Books/ folder, it’ll go into 'docs' table for sideloaded books still, right?

BTW: How do you fiddle with databases such as internal.db?
Use adb to pull/push and fiddle on PC, or use adb shell to do it on nook?
I tried to place the books into /data/media/B&N Downloads/Books/ folder but the nook ignored them. From what i can tell it checks the database file and if its not in there it doesn't see it.

if you place your books in /system/media/books/ folder it will recognize them as sideloaded books. That is the same location as your quick start.epub and the manual.epub

I have placed books there and the nook will load them after a reboot.

I adb pull/push and used a program called sqliteadmin in windows
 

Droidatar

Senior Member
Jan 23, 2012
278
19
sideloaded books on Nook

OK so I've found that the database looks to be here

/data/data/com.android.providers.media/databases/internal.db <----- Looks more promising

/data/data/com.android.providers.downloads/databases/downloads.db <----- deadend
I've figured out the sqlite thing....

Downloads didn't work....

Internal.db seems to have all the information.... It has a field for summary, author, what not.... So Meta info isn't used at all by the nook... its added per book base to the internal.db file.... bummer. I guess i'll add the info and see if it is recognized.

Looks like there might be alot of info needed from BN.com to make it work... ugh

I was searching and came across your post, have you considered using Calibre to sideload your books? I just changed yesterday to include the metadata (within calibre program) on the first page of the book. that way you can review the information you have set. It will also download metadata for books you do not have info on.

Don't know if this helps good luck with your Nook.
 

gadgetroid

Senior Member
Feb 21, 2012
1,415
551
Mysore
gadgetroid.wordpress.com
I realize I may be bumping this thread, but I figured that it was worth it. I worked around with a few of the files and I figured out everything now. I can get my side-loaded books to show up in the My Books section. Thanks to OP to giving me the hint about the database files. :good:

My method requires you to download a sample of the book you want to side load from the Nook Store ( remember, a sample; not the book. Samples are free.) The database files contain the metadata info. Copy the filename of the sample you have downloaded( this will be in \sdcard\Nook\Content). Copy over the ePub you want to side load and rename the file with the name of the sample downloaded. Going into the Nook app, you can now see that the sample in the Library has been replaced with the full version of the book.

Head over to Android Market and buy the SQLite Editor. Once that's done, open up the app and click on B&N Nook( or something to that effect, since I don't remember it exactly). Head into products, and scroll sideways until you come across "isSample". ( Please look into the column or row for your book.) For your sample book, the value will be set to 1. For the purchased books, it'll be zero. Just long click on that cell and edit the value and set it to 0. Click back, exit out of the app and launch the Nook app.

You can now see that the "Sample" logo from the sample book is gone. Voila! Sample books have all the privileges of the full book purchased from the B&N Store. The B&N Store has an abysmal selection of books, so I prefer buying my books from elsewhere and then using them on B&N app. That's the best app I've found for Android so far.

I haven't got the syncing to work yet. I just got onto my tablet, and I don't feel like going through the whole process again. I'll try it out tomorrow and let you know. Side note: I also got "Internal errors" upon launching the app. I believe this is because of me updating the database files and B&N not having a copy of the update. But the app obeys the local copy present, so I' m not too worried about that at the moment.

Can the OP look into this on the Nook tablet? I can confirm this works on the normal Android tablets, but I'm not so sure of the Nook tablet. Maybe it can be run from the CM ROMs?
 
gadgetdroid's workaround does, indeed give you sharing capabilities.
But this happened when I tried to share to facebook:
#NAME# shared a quote from #TITLE# on a NOOK
by #AUTHOR#
clicking 'more' in order to have metadata and summary come up yields 'service unavailable'.
Also, the sample books on my Nook get saved to /sdcard/B&N Downloads/Books/ (symlinked /data/media to /sdcard, so pretend it's /data/media for the rest of you who didn't make that change)
Still I count this as progress. I'm not sure if simply adding a line to the products db on scan is the answer because the products db has so many more columns than the docs db but I'ma try it and see what happens.
 
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spoofing tryouts...

So I tried spoofing the products db to see what what would happen by copying an entry from the docs db (where I had a book already) to the products db, like so (IOW, without having downloaded a sample book from B&N):

INSERT INTO products (_data, ean, _size, product_type, mime_type, _display_name, title, authors, mainAuthorFirstName, mainAuthorLastName, publisher, thumb_image, cover_image, product_code, format_code, purchase status, date_published, date_added, date_modified, locker_delivery_id, locker_status, luid) SELECT _data, _data, _size, product_type, mime_type, _display_name, title, authors, mainAuthorFirstName, mainAuthorLastName, "Barnes & Noble", thumb_image, cover_image, "ER", "EP", "1", "0", date_added, date_modified, "39248209", "ACTIVE", "L39248209" FROM docs where docs.title="The Old Man and the Sea" LIMIT 1;

I then deleted the relevant entry in the sideloaded db (e.g. docs), went into the Library and clicked the update key. this didn't seem to be effective. I then changed the ean entry to a real isbn number instead of just using the filename twice...still nothing. I then rebooted the device. I tihnk this actually caused the library to do a rescan. I now found that I had two copies of 'The Old Man and the Sea' listed (which of course were actually in the same physical location). The first one listed managed to begin to act like a bought book! E.g. when I went to 'more...' to read metadata, it showed the 'Service Unavailable' error. The sharing button was ungreyed! I then tried to share something to Facebook...but got an error message:
A Problem Occurred: Can't complete operation
20121007160749.jpg



Still, I count that as progress. In the above example, the epub file didn't have a publisher field, and of course the _ean field in the docs database is not populated, so I had to manually drop that in. The ean field cannot be null, and cannot just be some random string of characters. I confirmed this by going back and modifying the db - progress stopped right there, and the Share button became greyed out again.
So I'm not sure if a) the other fields in the products db, which I still have not populated, are relevant to making this functionality work or b) this is as far as we can go and b&n holds all the keys.

One other note: The locker_delivery_id and luid numbers, which are identical except for the leading L, I made up; these cannot be null.

EDIT: one last thing - whenever I open either the 'first' or 'second' copies of 'The Old Man and the Sea' off of a cold boot, I simply get a black screen, and have to go back to the Library and click the book again. I'm not sure if that has to do with anything I'm doing or if it's because of the guevor's kernel (which I just installed)
 
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gadgetroid

Senior Member
Feb 21, 2012
1,415
551
Mysore
gadgetroid.wordpress.com
So I tried spoofing the products db to see what what would happen by copying an entry from the docs db (where I had a book already) to the products db, like so (IOW, without having downloaded a sample book from B&N):



I then deleted the relevant entry in the sideloaded db (e.g. docs), went into the Library and clicked the update key. this didn't seem to be effective. I then changed the ean entry to a real isbn number instead of just using the filename twice...still nothing. I then rebooted the device. I tihnk this actually caused the library to do a rescan. I now found that I had two copies of 'The Old Man and the Sea' listed (which of course were actually in the same physical location). The first one listed managed to begin to act like a bought book! E.g. when I went to 'more...' to read metadata, it showed the 'Service Unavailable' error. The sharing button was ungreyed! I then tried to share something to Facebook...but got an error message:

20121007160749.jpg



Still, I count that as progress. In the above example, the epub file didn't have a publisher field, and of course the _ean field in the docs database is not populated, so I had to manually drop that in. The ean field cannot be null, and cannot just be some random string of characters. I confirmed this by going back and modifying the db - progress stopped right there, and the Share button became greyed out again.
So I'm not sure if a) the other fields in the products db, which I still have not populated, are relevant to making this functionality work or b) this is as far as we can go and b&n holds all the keys.

One other note: The locker_delivery_id and luid numbers, which are identical except for the leading L, I made up; these cannot be null.

EDIT: one last thing - whenever I open either the 'first' or 'second' copies of 'The Old Man and the Sea' off of a cold boot, I simply get a black screen, and have to go back to the Library and click the book again. I'm not sure if that has to do with anything I'm doing or if it's because of the guevor's kernel (which I just installed)

I repeat, unless B&N don't have a copy of your purchase, you will face errors of not finding metadata. I just installed Linux on my laptop, so I'll go through a few things and post the results soon. Have you updated the Nook app to the latest version? In the latest one, you don't have to restart the app any more or restart the device or kill it's process to see the new books added through the file manager.

One more thing. Have you manually tried filling up the metadata on the book you copied in Products db? Don't set the syncing to take place. Mark it as 0. I want to get metadata working first.

Sent from my XT530 using Tapatalk 2
 

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    I realize I may be bumping this thread, but I figured that it was worth it. I worked around with a few of the files and I figured out everything now. I can get my side-loaded books to show up in the My Books section. Thanks to OP to giving me the hint about the database files. :good:

    My method requires you to download a sample of the book you want to side load from the Nook Store ( remember, a sample; not the book. Samples are free.) The database files contain the metadata info. Copy the filename of the sample you have downloaded( this will be in \sdcard\Nook\Content). Copy over the ePub you want to side load and rename the file with the name of the sample downloaded. Going into the Nook app, you can now see that the sample in the Library has been replaced with the full version of the book.

    Head over to Android Market and buy the SQLite Editor. Once that's done, open up the app and click on B&N Nook( or something to that effect, since I don't remember it exactly). Head into products, and scroll sideways until you come across "isSample". ( Please look into the column or row for your book.) For your sample book, the value will be set to 1. For the purchased books, it'll be zero. Just long click on that cell and edit the value and set it to 0. Click back, exit out of the app and launch the Nook app.

    You can now see that the "Sample" logo from the sample book is gone. Voila! Sample books have all the privileges of the full book purchased from the B&N Store. The B&N Store has an abysmal selection of books, so I prefer buying my books from elsewhere and then using them on B&N app. That's the best app I've found for Android so far.

    I haven't got the syncing to work yet. I just got onto my tablet, and I don't feel like going through the whole process again. I'll try it out tomorrow and let you know. Side note: I also got "Internal errors" upon launching the app. I believe this is because of me updating the database files and B&N not having a copy of the update. But the app obeys the local copy present, so I' m not too worried about that at the moment.

    Can the OP look into this on the Nook tablet? I can confirm this works on the normal Android tablets, but I'm not so sure of the Nook tablet. Maybe it can be run from the CM ROMs?
    1
    Well you just "adb pull" the internal.db file to your desktop, and then use sqlite3 or whatever editor you use to mess with it. If you've been editing it already then you must know where it is; I don't know off the top of my head and don't have my Nook here
    1
    As far as I'm aware, it worked for the last book I tried. Yes, we do unfortunately have to follow the rest of the steps, because I worked on a Calibre converted ebook with the sharing option turned on for the Products.db experiment. Can you tell me how you managed to pull the SQLite files from the Nook using ADB? It would be easier to edit them on the computer. :)

    /data/data/com.android.providers.media/databases/internal.db