1FrogInTheFall
Hi,
apologies in advance if this is the wrong place to post this.
I absolutely love LibraryThing and over the last 6 months or so I have migrated fully from GoodReads. The website itself works fantastically, and considering I have a significant number of non-English books, the ability to use different sources has been a gamechanger.
However, i am really struggling with the app. when I've initially done an import from goodreads there was a lot of messy data that i worked to rectify over time and now i got to the stage where i am relatively satisfied with how it all looks.
But the problem is that when I use the app, it seems that for whatever reason, once I amended the books, the old version of the book record was retained in the app database so when i search for it, it will give me two results, the new record and the old record. the old record i can click on but it just opens a blank screen without any data and an error message. i can't delete it. I can't find the old record when i use the same search query on the website. it's difficult to describe but i've added two screenshots if it helps.
i tried searching for others with similar issues and i had tried the usual like reinstalling, clearing the data, relogging but nothing helped.
i would really appreciate the help in resolving this and I am happy to provide more information if necessary.
thanks.
apologies in advance if this is the wrong place to post this.
I absolutely love LibraryThing and over the last 6 months or so I have migrated fully from GoodReads. The website itself works fantastically, and considering I have a significant number of non-English books, the ability to use different sources has been a gamechanger.
However, i am really struggling with the app. when I've initially done an import from goodreads there was a lot of messy data that i worked to rectify over time and now i got to the stage where i am relatively satisfied with how it all looks.
But the problem is that when I use the app, it seems that for whatever reason, once I amended the books, the old version of the book record was retained in the app database so when i search for it, it will give me two results, the new record and the old record. the old record i can click on but it just opens a blank screen without any data and an error message. i can't delete it. I can't find the old record when i use the same search query on the website. it's difficult to describe but i've added two screenshots if it helps.
i tried searching for others with similar issues and i had tried the usual like reinstalling, clearing the data, relogging but nothing helped.
i would really appreciate the help in resolving this and I am happy to provide more information if necessary.
thanks.
2bnielsen
>1 FrogInTheFall: Since your library is private, it is difficult for non LT-staff to guess what's causing your problem. One guess is that you are not searching in all your collections and that the old record is hiding somewhere in a collection, you don't search? Have you tried the TinyCat version of your library? Another tactic would be to export your data as TSV and see if you have one or two records showing up there for the affected title.
ETA: The error message as text: "There was an error retrieving the details. Pull down to refresh." I haven't seen that before. (I'm using the Android app to help prevent picking up stuff, that I already have.)
BTW This is a fine place to post about this, so your apologies are not accepted :-)
ETA: The error message as text: "There was an error retrieving the details. Pull down to refresh." I haven't seen that before. (I'm using the Android app to help prevent picking up stuff, that I already have.)
BTW This is a fine place to post about this, so your apologies are not accepted :-)
3FrogInTheFall
Thank you so much for your response, and I'm glad that i got the right community:)
More than happy to make my library public if that will help, and I will try the TinyCat. I've just done some more testing based on your advice and as far as I can see, the issue does seem to be isolated to the app.
For example, if I look at all the books, the total number of books is the same both on the website and on the app so I've used the books from Jennifer Ackerman to test and if I list all the books in the library and scroll down her books, it rightly shows the two books i have. But if i search her surname, three books appear (the last one being a duplicate and erroring out).
Additionally, if i list the authors I can see the count of 2 against her name (correct) but if I click her name three books appear (the last one again the duplicate one that errors out). So it is all positively strange!
See screenshots if they help to illustrate what I'm talking about.
I mean, all things considered, it's not major issue, i mostly use the website anyway, but I love LibraryThing so much that i thought that it would be great if the app was working properly so that I can correctly search the books in my collection (as it's fairly big - 6300+ books!)
Many thanks for taking the time to help out!
More than happy to make my library public if that will help, and I will try the TinyCat. I've just done some more testing based on your advice and as far as I can see, the issue does seem to be isolated to the app.
For example, if I look at all the books, the total number of books is the same both on the website and on the app so I've used the books from Jennifer Ackerman to test and if I list all the books in the library and scroll down her books, it rightly shows the two books i have. But if i search her surname, three books appear (the last one being a duplicate and erroring out).
Additionally, if i list the authors I can see the count of 2 against her name (correct) but if I click her name three books appear (the last one again the duplicate one that errors out). So it is all positively strange!
See screenshots if they help to illustrate what I'm talking about.
I mean, all things considered, it's not major issue, i mostly use the website anyway, but I love LibraryThing so much that i thought that it would be great if the app was working properly so that I can correctly search the books in my collection (as it's fairly big - 6300+ books!)
Many thanks for taking the time to help out!
4SandraArdnas
>3 FrogInTheFall: To be fair, the app is desperately in need of an update, which is coming once the major site updates are done. Even so, it's still useful for its original purpose: to quickly scan in books and check whether you have something already when in bookstore. But it seems to be showing more issues as it gets more out of step with the site.
No need to make your library public, developers can poke around to track issues even if private, it's just that public ones can be seen by anybody, so if there's something that can be done right away and we spot it, we can suggest. (If you plan on using TinyCat, I believe going public is required though. Otherwise, it has nothing to show)
ETA: one thing that springs to mind is that it's a cache issue, so I'd try clearing the app cache. On Android, longpress on the icon, then choose storage to get the option
No need to make your library public, developers can poke around to track issues even if private, it's just that public ones can be seen by anybody, so if there's something that can be done right away and we spot it, we can suggest. (If you plan on using TinyCat, I believe going public is required though. Otherwise, it has nothing to show)
ETA: one thing that springs to mind is that it's a cache issue, so I'd try clearing the app cache. On Android, longpress on the icon, then choose storage to get the option
5FrogInTheFall
>4 SandraArdnas: Thank you. Being a newcomer, i didn't know major site updates are happening. Very exciting. I think you a right, it's likely the culprit of this particular issue and personally, I am happy to wait for whenever it happens, it's at most a minor nuisance. I did suspect it might be caching so i have tried logging in with to separate devices and since both of them had the same issue, i believe the cause is server side, rather than client side.
