The 2026-10-21 wipe: a re-extraction pass NULLed audio_metadata on the
m4b audiobooks — every affected book dropped its chapters, track
manifest and duration and displayed as 1 second long (the reader also
lost its manifest, since single-file books synthesize it from the
payload).
Guards on both writers of that column:
- updateMediaItemWithMetadata (generic full-row pass): when the new
extraction carries no audio payload, keep existing.AudioMetadata.
Single-file m4b books route here, and a failed/absent extraction
leaves AudioMeta nil.
- updateAudioBookItem (focused payload write): an empty payload (no
tracks, no chapters, no duration) over a populated row is a failed
extraction — refuse the write with a loud warning and let the next
scan retry.
audioPayloadIsEmpty() pins the empty-payload predicate (unit-tested):
the column is only ever replaced by fresh data from a real audio
extraction, never by absence of one.
John O'Keefe
80bfc1a77b