IBooks seriously unstable after install of iOS 8

Question

Since installing iOS 8 on my iPad (128 GB) iBooks is showing serious instability.
Background: I use my iPad principally as a library. No music, films, videos or games, but a number of mainly productivity apps. iBooks has worked very well. Over several years i have built up a library of 1 231 ePub titles (sorted alphabetically by author, and chronologically for each author) and 3 251 pdf documents (more complex sorting order).
After installing iOS 8.01, most of the books and docs disappeared from the iPad. The iBooks interface in iTunes had the missing items ticked and items still on the iPad unticked. There was no way I could make the interface work normally. No difference after installing iOS 8.02 so in the end i restored the iPad from the backup on my computer (everything was restored, except opsys which remained 8.02). Same issues remained. So i deleted and reinstalled iTunes. Same problems remained. So I deleted all items in the library. I have now started reconstructing the library (re-transferring and sorting all the ePubs and pdfs is going to take months - one of the issues is that all titles are flagged as ‘new’ and I have to open and close them to get rid of the blue ribbon on the cover image - is there some way of turning off this pesky and unwanted function ?). I have started with the ePubs. After having reached abt 400+ titles odd things have started to happen. The whole collection sofar was suddenly unticked and all titles disappeared from the iPad. After ticking all 400+ again manually, I managed to reinstall them all. But now, if I transfer further titles to the iPad, or delete some, the iPad is wiped practically clean (only iTunes-bought titles remain plus a random few more) and the sync sequence, after first wiping the titles, then reinstalls them all again - which takes a while. The reinstall works - ‘new’ ribbons do not reappear, the order of the titles is preserved, but transferring titles has become infinitely more time-consuming. More background: I use Calibre as interface between my computer (where all titles are stored) and iTunes. This interface works without a hitch. Titles are added or deleted from iTunes with perfect precision. It is the syncing of iTunes with iPad which is now completely unstable. I am very disappointed. I have invested a lot of time and energy (and money) creating a common eLibrary for all my titles on iBooks. Basically re-purchasing masses of print titles as e-titles. Apple has usually managed to upgrade its operating system without any glitches. They have normally dotted all the i:s and crossed all the t:s before releasing a new version (at least as far as iBooks are concerned). This time they didn’t, and I am severely affected. And I can’t even report this problem to Apple (support timed out!) so have to use the forums to make the issue known.
I have run a sync diagnostic test which turned up no problems. Ideas, anyone ?

Answer 1

Hello jrdtnpsp,
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Alex H.