Frequently Asked Questions

App

Q: Is Shosetsu a clone or fork of Tachiyomi?

Shosetsu is not a clone or fork of Tachiyomi.

At most, one can say Shosetsu is a Tachiyomi-like, Libre-Free and Open Source extendable novel reader for Android.

Why are my novel images blank?

Some extensions do not support images, but if you know yours does it might be one of the following.

1. Cloudflare
2. The image broke
3. Some network issue
4. The website is down

And in response:

1. Open the novel in webview, you can maybe try to verify cloudflare this way
2. If you submit an issue or report on to our community, we may be able to fix this.
3. Wait till later.
4. #2, but be prepared for the site to be gone forever.

v2.5.1: I cannot create a backup

Have you setup the backup directory? This can be done by:

1. Open Backup Settings
2. Click on "Storage Location"
3. Select a directory to store backups

v2.5.1: Why is my novel and extensions crashing when opened

Please navigate to either your Extensions view or Repositories view and pull down to refresh.

This will redownload any missing internal libraries from the repositories.

Please restart your phone, or force kill Shosetsu and open it up again for the changes to take effect.

Q: How to move from v1.x preview to v2.x.x stable?

• Install the v2.x.x release, it will install as a seperate app.
• Go to More → Backups and create a backup.
• Export this backup to an external location you can access easily.
• Open the v2.x.x release and again by going to More → Backups choose the option to restore the backup you just created.
• You should have your library back in the v2.x.x release.

Note: You will have to redownload any chapters you downloaded in the v1.x release.

Issue with v1.#.# / preview r####

Please use the v2.x.x stable release.

Support is not provided for development, beta, alpha, or any other release aside from stable.

Extensions

What is the best extension for shosetsu?

There are multiple ways to answer this.

Short: There is none.

Long: Install all of them and global search.

Longer: Depends on the content you like. You can try them all out but some people recommend starting with WuxiaWold, NovelFull and/or BoxNovel.

Longest: Why limit yourself to a single one? The whole point of Shosetsu is the versatility of being able to use as many different sources as you want, and even choose the extensions from third-party repositories if you need to. Use the source which has the best version of the content you seek.

How can i request a new extension

Go to the extensions github Make sure there isn't another for the same one at the extensions repo. Otherwise make a new issue(Source Request)

Where do extensions come from?

https://gitlab.com/shosetsuorg/extensions

Whats with some extensions not working

We haven't worked on them in awhile, If you know Lua feel free to contribute.

Why does Sysosetsu (extension) not have images?

The website does not have images

Why does MTL (extension) not search?

No search for MTL.

Why does ReadLightNovel have so many issues?

Shitty website

Best Extension/Source for "[novel title]"?

Try them all out and do a global search, or use google. Please.

Q: Next release date?

Soonᵗᵐ

Q: I have no Extensions, what do I do?

Please make sure you have the following options enabled in Download settings and Update Settings.

• Download/Update on Metered Connection
• Download/Update on low battery
• Download/Update on low storage

If the above fails, go to Advanced settings and click "Force update"

How to edit a backup

First, one must understand what is going on in a Shosetsu backup file.

What Shosetsu does:

1. Take application data
2. Turn it into a JSON file
3. GZip the json file
4. (v2.4.4 and before) encodes via base64
5. Puts it all into the "sbk" file.

To reverse this, the following command can be used in a Linux terminal. Please ensure no other file exists with the same name.

For v2.5.0 and after:

cat BACKUPFILE.sbk | gzip -d > decompressed-backup.sbk.json

For v2.4.4 and before:

cat BACKUPFILE.sbk | base64 -d - | gzip -d > decompressed-backup.sbk.json

This will print out the entire backup into the file decompressed-backup.sbk.json

Now you can format it, edit it, and look through it however you would like.

Upon completion, you can return it to the normal state with the following commands, Ensuring no other file exists with the same name.

For v2.5.0 and after:

cat decompressed-backup.sbk.json | gzip > restored-backup.sbk

For v2.4.4 and before:

cat decompressed-backup.sbk.json | gzip | base64 > restored-backup.sbk