Titles with numbers not showing up in my library

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Titles with numbers not showing up in my library

1ValerieAndBooks
abr. 6, 2019, 9:25 pm

Several titles that I own with numbers in them, such as 1Q84 or 1776 , are not showing up in my library.

2MarthaJeanne
Editat: abr. 7, 2019, 12:06 am

My books with that sort of title are showing. 1491 1984. When I sort my books by title I see a long list of books whose titles begin with numbers.

In your catalogue I see no books beginning with numbers.

3r.orrison
abr. 7, 2019, 3:35 am

I see 7 books by Haruki Murakami in your library, but not 1Q84. It really looks like it's not in your library, not just that it's not showing up. How did you enter your books?

4MarthaJeanne
Editat: abr. 7, 2019, 3:59 am

The problem really seems to be with numbers at the beginning of the title. I have found titles with three and four digit numbers in them, but there are no titles that begin with numbers.

Also the number of books in all collections agrees in both the profile and the catalogue, another sign that they are not just not showing.

5ValerieAndBooks
abr. 7, 2019, 5:35 pm

>2 MarthaJeanne: It's odd. Previously, when I sorted my books, the titles beginning with numbers would be at top, as you say. Now it's as if they've disappeared. Hmm.

6ValerieAndBooks
abr. 7, 2019, 5:37 pm

>3 r.orrison: I don't recall whether I used the LibraryThing app to add 1Q84, which was fairly recently. But there are others such as 1776 that I know I added a long time ago and before the app was created.

7ValerieAndBooks
abr. 7, 2019, 5:44 pm

>4 MarthaJeanne: Yes. And I am fairly sure I have more books than what my profile and catalogue are showing. It's like all my books starting with a number (or only a number) have disappeared. Any one else having this problem, I wonder?

8ValerieAndBooks
abr. 7, 2019, 7:40 pm

>2 MarthaJeanne: >3 r.orrison: So, just now I added 1Q84 just to see what would happen. The new add does show up as it should. If this bug isn't fixed, I suppose I could look through my entire physical library for these type of titles and add them. But unfortunately would lose any reviews I had given for those books. I hope this can be solved, especially if I'm not the only one experiencing this.

9divinenanny
abr. 8, 2019, 2:41 am

I have 1Q84 in my library from way back when. When I search for author: Murakami, it shows up. When I sort on title it shows up. It has more than the word starting with a number ("1Q84: Book 3"), but my one book with just a numbered title ("1985") also shows up. Both are old adds (2016 and 2013)

10lorax
abr. 8, 2019, 8:55 am

My titles containing numbers, whether or not they start with numbers or contain only numbers, do show up. By "show up" here I mean they appear in my catalog. They are also found by a search, whether by title or author.

11ValerieAndBooks
abr. 8, 2019, 10:53 am

>9 divinenanny: >10 lorax: Thanks to both of you for looking. How odd it is that it seems to be just me so far. For me, 1984 is also gone. So are 20,000 Years of Fashion and 100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda and quite a few more. So it's not like I accidentally deleted one or two such titles.

12gilroy
abr. 8, 2019, 1:46 pm

Can I make a suggestion?

Maybe go into inventory mode, check off all the books you find. If you find a consistent missing grouping, it might be from when they were uploaded. We did have a break of missing data a while ago that might not have recovered for you. If you can find the window it's missing from, maybe it could help narrow it down.

13lorannen
abr. 8, 2019, 2:00 pm

>11 ValerieAndBooks: I also have a process I can use to undelete deleted books. The drawback here is that it undelete's all books ever deleted from your account, which is maybe not what you want to do. If you do want me to do this, I'd recommend applying a unique tag or collection (the latter, I think, is easier to find the inverse of) to all books that are in your library now, so that when I restore deleted books, it's easy to identify them.

Alternatively, I can ask devs if there's a way for me to find books deleted by time-frame, but it may be a week or so before I'm able to get their help with that.

14ValerieAndBooks
abr. 8, 2019, 2:48 pm

>12 gilroy: >13 lorannen: The main thing that the missing books have in common are that the titles either start with, or consist only of, a number (some examples are in my earlier comments). They were added when I acquired them -- and I've been on LibraryThing for over ten years -- so I don't think it's a time frame of when they were added.

As for when they disappeared, I don't know. I noticed they were missing on April 6th.

Lorannen, would your process work for books that disappeared but that I did *not* delete? I'm not sure how I'd tag all of my current books at once with an unique tag?

Thanks for your feedback.

15lorannen
abr. 8, 2019, 2:53 pm

>14 ValerieAndBooks: I believe so, but can't be sure without trying it, unfortunately. The process restores books that have their deleted flag set. All books you've cataloged should be in our database—those that are deleted or not appearing in your library should have that deleted flag set.

16lilithcat
abr. 8, 2019, 2:55 pm

>14 ValerieAndBooks:

I'm not sure how I'd tag all of my current books at once with an unique tag?

I'm not lorannen, but wanted to let you know that you can use Power Edit (the yellow lightning bolt in the bar at the top of your catalog). Click on that, then "select all" and choose your tag.

17ValerieAndBooks
abr. 8, 2019, 3:04 pm

>16 lilithcat: thank you! Now all of the books that are currently showing in my library have the tag "vsm" (my initials) added to them.

cc: >15 lorannen:

18lorannen
abr. 8, 2019, 3:59 pm

>16 lilithcat: Thanks! Sorry I missed that Q in the above post—it's been a hectic day.

>17 ValerieAndBooks: I'll get on the restore process tomorrow, as I'm in transit this evening. Thanks very much!

19ValerieAndBooks
Editat: abr. 9, 2019, 5:07 pm

>15 lorannen: >16 lilithcat: I hate to say this but I have noticed today that it is not just my titles starting with numbers that are missing. Titles that start with the letter A have disappeared as well. "A" is for Alibi (I added that one back today before the lightbulb went off in my head), A Death in the Family, A Tale of Two Cities, etc. So, I'm thinking it was books at the top of my list alphabetically that disappeared and that would include titles with numbers because those come before A . In other words, it's not just the number titles.

20lorannen
Editat: abr. 10, 2019, 11:36 am

Okay, restoring books is finally done. There were 1,193 total books restored. I have all the book IDs for them, and am working on getting you a list. >19 ValerieAndBooks: Would you rather I post them here, or would profile comment or email be preferable? I ask mostly because it's a looooong list!

ETA: Prior to restoring, your account was showing 1,606 books cataloged, total, which, I think, was the same as what I saw the other day? You're now at 2,799.

21ValerieAndBooks
abr. 10, 2019, 12:34 pm

>20 lorannen: Wow, thank you for your efforts! I'm definitely seeing a lot of my missing books that I currently own -- and more than I realized. Still don't know how that group of currently owned books disappeared (what's your theory, if you have one?), but as long as I have them back, I'm okay :-). There were definitely more than 1,606 books in my catalog.

I guess I've also learned how many books I've given away/deleted over the years since being on LibraryThing in 2008 -- about a thousand :-0 ?! Now I can tell my husband look what would have happened if I kept them all ;-). He'd probably be glad we moved a few times which had caused me to go through some major culling periods.

I'm not sure how a book ID list would be useful -- can you elaborate? I did tag the books "vsm" I had before you did the restore, so that will help me go through the restored catalog faster. I don't want it to be too much work for you beyond this -- I know you're busy.

Thanks again!

22lorannen
abr. 10, 2019, 12:47 pm

>21 ValerieAndBooks: Sorry for the confusion there—I meant to include that I could give you a direct link to each book page (that's what the book ID numbers are for), along with a total list of all the restored books, if you wanted it. That wouldn't take me but a minute.

The bad news is that I'm still not sure what happened beyond our system thinks you deleted these books at some point. I haven't been able to track down when a book was deleted, which would be useful in sorting out what happened. The upside is that (and you'll have to confirm for me, here, since I can't tell if there are some that are missing), I think this restoration captured all of the books that mysteriously went missing. If, as you're looking through, you could tell me which ones shouldn't have been deleted, that would help us figure out if there's a pattern here.

Also, I'd advise against outright deleting any records you don't need to keep for a day or two. That way, I can check your account regularly and make sure this isn't continuing to happen—that is, if I start seeing deleted books in your account, and we've already done this restoration, and you haven't deleted anything more, we know there's something still off.

23ValerieAndBooks
abr. 10, 2019, 1:17 pm

>22 lorannen: Since the list is pretty long, maybe email would be better? The same one that is on file for LT would be fine.

I do think, at a long glance, that this restoration did capture all the mysteriously missing books. I'll confirm whether that is true when I let you know which ones shouldn't have been deleted. I should be able to get back to you on that within the next 24 hours. And, good suggestion for me to leave my list alone for a couple days.

Thanks again!

24norabelle414
abr. 10, 2019, 1:19 pm

>21 ValerieAndBooks: When I cull books I always keep the LT record but put it in a separate collection for deaccessioned books, so I can feel good about all the books I've gotten rid of as I peruse the next book sale :-)

25lorax
abr. 10, 2019, 1:34 pm

My guess, since nobody else has reported a similar issue, would be that ValerieAndBooks was doing some PowerEditing at one point, with books sorted alphabetically by title, and accidentally clicked "Delete" when "All books on page" were selected. Easy to lose a hundred books at a stroke that way.

26ValerieAndBooks
abr. 10, 2019, 3:23 pm

>24 norabelle414: lol! It had just crossed my mind that I might do as you do -- but most likely I won't :-). So many of my de-accessioned books are, for example, from hobbies I no longer do.

27ValerieAndBooks
abr. 10, 2019, 3:42 pm

>25 lorax: It's possible that somehow I inadvertently caused these books to disappear, but if so it doesn't seem like it was from an "all books on page" edit action. I actually use the LT app on my phone a lot more these days than the LT website, and I don't think I can power edit from the app? Anyway, I will provide a list later -- it's far less than a hundred -- with more explanation on where they were within the comprehensive restored list, hopefully tonight.

28lorax
abr. 10, 2019, 5:15 pm

Oh, the app? Well, my other suggestion was that you were using the app and accidentally swiped rather than tapped, but I had trouble believing that would delete hundreds of books (since that's the total number that lorannen restored). I don't use the app myself precisely because they make deletion so easy!

29lorannen
Editat: abr. 10, 2019, 6:03 pm

Aquest missatge ha estat suprimit pel seu autor.

30lorannen
abr. 10, 2019, 6:05 pm

>27 ValerieAndBooks: That's very good to know! Thank you.

31ValerieAndBooks
Editat: abr. 12, 2019, 4:42 pm

>28 lorax: Lorannen restored all the books I ever entered into LT since I became a member back in 2008. So that was a lot, lol. Even the ones I no longer own and purposely deleted at the times of deaccessioning. Because there wasn't really a (quick) way to discern those from the ones that I noticed were missing (ETA: to clarify -- missing from my currently owned books).

So, >30 lorannen: , here are the books that went missing (but are restored, thanks to you). Take note of my comments below also -- maybe it'll help figure out what happened. And if the cause was something I did on my end, I apologize. I really appreciate all your efforts and time :-).

100 Dresses
100 Love Sonnets
100 Poems to Lift Your Spirits
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
101 Dalmatians
101 Things to Learn in Art School
11/22/63
12 Terrors of Christmas
1776
1876
1984
1984 (different edition/cover)
The 1997 Joy of Cooking
1Q84
20 Most Asked Questions about the Amish and Mennonites
20,000 Years of Fashiobn
30 Minute Meals
The 500: A Novel
The 64 Sonnets
84, Charing Cross Road
“A” is for Alibi
The ABC Murders
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
The Accidental Masterpiece
Across the River and into the Trees
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

That is 26 books, above; but then, I found two (edit: three) other gone-missing titles starting with A that were on other pages, below:

A Death in the Family (by Agee) -- ETA that I just found this formerly missing book hidden within the titles starting with D)
A Field Guide to American Houses (listed within the titles starting with F)
A Stew or a Story (within the titles starting with S)

Things Fall Apart (by Achebe) -- this one doesn't fit the parameters above. Maybe I did delete that one unintentionally at some point.

Then there were also:

The Gourmet Cookbook
Hershey’s Chocolate Treasury
Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home
Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites
New Vegetarian (by Brown)

Five cookbooks above and three unrelated-to-each-other books below -- these might have been unintentional deletes on my part over time?

Others:

Royal Panoply
Ryan McGinness
Start (by Acuff)

32ValerieAndBooks
abr. 12, 2019, 3:09 pm

>30 lorannen: Now that it's been a couple days since you were able to restore my library history, I think I can go ahead and start deleting books I no longer own. Thanks again so much for all you do here on LT!!

I also appreciate everyone who has weighed in on this topic.

Should I change the bug status, and to what? Closed by member?

33Lyndatrue
abr. 12, 2019, 4:02 pm

>32 ValerieAndBooks: Leave the bug status change to staff. They can choose the option (most likely fixed or similar) when they get to it.

34kristilabrie
set. 16, 2019, 12:59 pm

Marking as fixed.

35ValerieAndBooks
oct. 27, 2020, 8:08 pm

This is bizarre, but it looks like this bug has re-appeared in a similar fashion for me! As far as I know, I was the only one this happened to last year.

Most, but not all, my titles with numbers (i.e. 1776, 1984, etc) have disappeared from my catalog again (including reviews that I know I gave for some of them). In this case, it looks like it's titles that have a number only (again, like 1776 or 1984) and not letters/words as part of the title (such as 1Q84 or 2001: A Space Odyssey). I cannot imagine any kind of action I would have taken that would cause the titles to be deleted either this time and last time.

I know a lot of effort was taken to restore my catalog (which was actually adding every single book I ever added to my LT) when this happened last year, and I am not asking to have that be done again if it's just effecting me. I can just add the missing titles back later. It doesn't seem to be too many this time. But I just wanted to let you all know just in case it is something that is system-wide for others this time around.

36lorax
oct. 28, 2020, 8:49 am

Weird! I can confirm that I do not see 1984 in ValerieAndBooks' library. I do see it in mine (and I have the title just as written there, no subtitle or spelling out the year.)

37kristilabrie
oct. 28, 2020, 10:33 am

>35 ValerieAndBooks: Sorry for your trouble! This is going to take some investigation. I am seeing 1776 and 1984 as deleted from your library, but it looks like they (or other copies perhaps) were deleted back in 2008 and 2017, respectively.

When was the last time you were sure you had the 1776 or 1984 books (or other examples) in your library? That is, when did you last look at or edit those books last in your library? Do you have an idea of how many books seem to be missing for you?

38ValerieAndBooks
oct. 28, 2020, 12:05 pm

>36 lorax: So maybe it is something that's within my account....weird for sure!

39ValerieAndBooks
oct. 28, 2020, 12:13 pm

>37 kristilabrie: I am sure I'm not the only one here on LT that likes to scroll through their own library now and then :-). I usually do that from my laptop. So I'm pretty sure they were in there up until probably last week or so. Just noticed last night because I had done a LT Early Reviewers review for the book 1789 a few weeks ago and was wanting to update it. But it was gone, along with the others I mentioned plus at least a few more. I'd have to physically look at my library to figure out all of them.

Here's what I usually do:

when I add a book to my library, I scan it using the app. Unless it's an older edition without a barcode, then I do that from the laptop.

When I delete a book from my library, I also use the app. Usually. The few times I delete from lap top is if I'm scrolling through my library and say to myself, hey, I guess I forgot to delete that one at some time. Then I click on the X corresponding to that book.

If I change a cover, I do it from the laptop.

When this happened last year, I think it was suggested that I might have accidentally deleted a group of books at once but I don't see how it can happen from the routines I follow above.

Thank you!

40kristilabrie
oct. 28, 2020, 2:23 pm

>39 ValerieAndBooks: Okay, I'm going to private message you so we can discuss this in more detail, thanks!

41ValerieAndBooks
juny 10, 2021, 2:57 pm

Hello, I hate to say that I'm having this problem again! But I think I know (but not understand why) what is causing this. Today I deleted a book from my LT app, and noticed that my count was down two less books, instead of one. One of the books with numbers in the title was gone also! After a closer look, I noticed that some of my other titles starting with numbers are also missing, probably correlated to previous deleted books.

Seems like this is possibly a weird app glitch -- as a test, I just now deleted a book from the LT main page (laptop) and just that book was deleted. At least this time around, I think there are only about 5-6 titles starting with numbers that are missing and it's easy enough for me to add them back later.

42kristilabrie
juny 11, 2021, 11:08 am

Very strange, indeed. When you delete a book from the app:
1. Which page do you delete the book/s from? If you start from your Home page in the app, tell me how you get to the page you're deleting books from.
2. How are your books sorted on that page (by title, author, etc.)? Or, are you deleting books from the actual book page/s (not list/s)?
3. Which title did you intend to delete, when you noticed your library went down by two instead of one book?
4. Did you see any slowness or delays, and/or did you attempt to delete the same book more than once (I'm thinking of any slowness or weirdness that may look like you haven't deleted the book, but it's still processing or something--something I'll need to test on my end, I think)?

43ValerieAndBooks
juny 11, 2021, 3:21 pm

>42 kristilabrie:
1 and 2. So when I was deleting books from the app, this is how it would go: Home page first, then click on "your catalog" (which is organized by title), then click on "all books", then enter the title in the search bar on the top. A list will usually populate before I finish typing the entire title. But I have found recently that if I swipe left to delete the title I want from that populated list, it won't delete (another glitch with the app?). So I click on the title itself and click on the red "delete" button on the bottom of the title page.

3. Yesterday, I deleted "Swimming Lessons" by Claire Fuller on the app. That is when I noticed I was down two books instead of one. I then looked at my catalog (from the app) and noticed a few titles starting with numbers were missing yet again. I don't know for sure which one was the one that disappeared along with "Swimming Lessons". Swimming Lessons is pretty far down from the titles with numbers, so it wouldn't be like I accidentally deleted two at the same time.

4. I did not notice any slowness or delays -- I don't remember if I tried clicking on "delete" more than once. Later on yesterday, I deleted a couple more books from my library from the laptop (main LT website), and just those books went away, no additional titles with numbers disappeared.

Thanks for looking into this yet again :-) .

44kristilabrie
juny 13, 2021, 11:10 am

Okay, great!

For #3, you mention that the title was sorted far away from titles with numbers, but in #1 and #2 you mention deleting by A. searching for the title first, and/or B. deleting directly from the book page. For "Swimming Lessons", specifically, how did you delete that book? I need to test your exact use case to see how the system is deleting more than the expected title/s, if that's the case. Thank you!

Once I hear back, I'll dig into your recently deleted titles and message with you privately so we can restore anything that was deleted by mistake. Thanks for your patience with this.

45ValerieAndBooks
juny 14, 2021, 12:17 am

>44 kristilabrie: Thanks for your response.

I deleted "Swimming Lessons" by going to the LT app, then clicking on the "your catalog" button (upper left button, not the button on the middle bottom). Then I clicked on "your catalog". The list of all books appears. I then clicked on the "search" bar at the top of the list. Typed in the book title, then when that came up, clicked on that title to go to the book page, then clicked on "delete" on the bottom left of the screen.

Then I went to the home page and immediately noticed I was down two books instead of one with that single delete action.

46kristilabrie
juny 14, 2021, 9:50 am

Okay, thanks. I'm unable to reproduce so I'll try taking this further with a PM to you!

47kristilabrie
juny 15, 2021, 4:43 pm

Wow, this was/is a nasty bug. Big thanks to ValerieAndBooks for being able to test this with me.

For developers to reproduce:
1. Log into the iOS App (not sure if happening on Android, perhaps AbigailAdams26 can test?). I tested on my iPhone 8, kristi_test_02 account.
2. Go to Your Catalog > All Books page.
3. Note the first book showing in your book list, doesn't matter how your list is sorted (although I tested, sorted in ascending order, by title and by date added).
4. Tap the "Search" box and enter a title for a book somewhere within your book list, just make sure it's not the first book in your list. (I tested twice, once for "dune" and "while justice sleeps"). Wait for the search results to load. NB: the book you attempt to delete MUST be the first book listed in your search results. Otherwise, this bug will not occur (per my testing).
5. When you see the book you wish to delete, swipe left over the book to show the red "Delete" option.
6. Tap the "Delete" button to delete your book. Note that 'nothing' happens: the red "Delete" button goes back to the right, and your book doesn't disappear. It appears your book is not yet deleted.
7. Now, tap on the book you just tried to delete to reach the book page. Scroll down to the bottom of the book page and use the "Delete" button on the bottom left of the page. Get the "Delete Book" confirmation prompt, and tap "Delete" within that pop-up.
8. You should get brought back to your search results, with the book you meant to delete now removed from the list/search results page. Tap the "Cancel" button to exit out of your search.
9. Note that the first book you saw in Step 3 is now gone from your library, as well as the book you intended to delete.

NB: this does not happen from the Your Catalog > Collections page/search, from what I can see in my testing.

48AbigailAdams26
juny 16, 2021, 11:25 am

1. I tested this on my Samsung Android phone, using my own account, AbigailAdams26
2. Went to Your Catalog > All Books page.
3. Noted first book showing in book list (Fierce Bad Rabbits)
4. Searched for "A Box Full of Trouble," by Robert Rohm
5. Swiped left to show Delete option
6. Tapped delete button (called "remove" on my phone)

Result: The book was deleted from my catalog, and the initial book in my list, Fierce Bad Rabbits, was not deleted.

It would appear that this bug does not affect Android users.