Importing GoodReads CSV files into Bookshelves

Getting started
1

I am having an issue importing GoodReads CSV files into Bookshelves for some reason. I get one book imported out 800+ and it’s the book I am currently reading. :frowning: Is anyone else having an issue? Thanks

2

Yikes, I haven’t seen that issue. Do you mind sending me your CSV file to help@micro.blog so I can see what it looks like? I have a guess that maybe the book is included multiple times if you have updated the reading progress and Micro.blog is confused by that. If it’s similar to that, should be easy to fix.

3

OK, I sent the CSV file to help@micro.blog as per request. Thanks!

4

Thanks for sending the file. I actually misread your question and thought the book was being imported 800 times… :slightly_smiling_face: Looking into the problem and will reply via email.

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5

I just tried with my CSV and had the same: one book, then stops at the second.

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6

Glad to hear this is an issue replicated by another user now. Hopefully it will be addressed soon. I am sure Manton will get it fixed.

7

Have you made sure every entry has an ISBN? No ISBN and it can’t get loaded into Micro.blog in my experience. Unfortunately, Goodreads cares a lot more about ASINs than ISBNs and many entries are missing non-Amazon identifiers. This was a huge pain in my butt when I did my initial load.

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8

From what I can see most of them have ISBN numbers so I don’t think that’s the issue here.

9

I modified my CSV and removed all books that did not have ISBN 13, and import failed.

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10

Thanks for trying to troubleshoot it this way. But I believe it’s an issue on MB side so hopefully this is resolved quickly.

11

I’ve tracked this down to a change in Goodreads. When there is no ISBN (there never is for Kindle books unfortunately), Micro.blog tries to crawl Goodreads to get book metadata, but this broke when Goodreads changed something on their web site. I’m trying to work around it, otherwise we’ll just have to skip books without an ISBN again.

12

Alright, I’ve rolled out some changes to this. Can y’all try importing again?

I’ve fixed a potential issue where the import would be abandoned if it encountered an error. You can see the progress by clicking on Account → View logs. Note that the import can take several minutes if it contains hundreds of books.

If a book is missing its ISBN in the CSV file, Micro.blog will now try to find it on Goodreads and Google. This won’t work all of the time, but I’m hoping it will find about 80% of books. If the file does include title, author, and ISBN, then it will work 100% of the time.

Thanks!

13

I tried, and it successfully added a few books that weren’t ISBN’d but it gave up after about 5 or so imports. I’m wondering if the importer has a hard time with Victorian (or academic) mega titles. stopped importing a title that has 144 characters.

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14

It does not work for me as well. Imports between 13-17 books and stops… I tried several times but it still does not seem to be fixed. Hopefully, this is addressed. :frowning:

15

Thanks everyone for testing this again! I’ve tracked down a couple additional issues with adapting to Goodreads when the ISBN is missing, and I’ve rolled out the change. I think it will be much more reliable now. I tested a file with hundreds of books and it works well, if a bit slowly.

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16

Thanks for the fix, it works now.

17

Works, too. thanks!