🚀 Version 2.0 Progress Update

[maxpiva]

✅ Done

Removed Suwayomi 🧹

• Backend now runs Mihon/Tachiyomi extensions directly.

Major rewrite & refactor 🔄

Thumbnail cache implemented 🖼️

• Replaces functionality previously handled by Suwayomi.

Automated database migration 🗄️

• Seamless migration to the new schema.

Codebase cleanup 🧼

• Better naming
• Clear separation of concerns
• Improved logging
• Misc race conditions and Mobile UI support (thank @Quickkill0 )

Docker without Suwayomi 🐳

• Container now runs fully standalone.

Temporary downgrade to .NET 8 ⬇️

• Found 2 compilation errors in IKVM while porting the Android layer. PR is currently under review.
• Current toolchain compiles the Android.Compat layer and patches IL using Mono.Cecil
• This creates a gap that causes fatal runtime errors on .NET 10 after a while, so .NET 8 is used temporarily

🚧 Coming Soon

Improved Local Series Provider 📚

• “Unknown” provider was previously filling this gap.

NSFW toggle support (thanks @WhatTheShuck) 🔞
Better sources integration 🔌
Start downloads from a specific chapter ⬇️
Stability improvements & testing 🧪

2.0 SHIPS 🚀

🔮 Later

Downloads & Status page improvements 📊

• Visibility into sources with long-running errors. Suggestions welcome!

Tag problematic sources 🏷️

• Filter series by failing sources
• Easily switch to another source

Series page revamp 📖

• Maintenance tools need love 💔 Feedback welcome!

Import Wizard cleanup 🧹

💡 Maybe / Future Ideas

OPDS / Web server support 🌐

User accounts 👤

• No local watch-state storage (at least on db, we could include that info in the series folder, in that way it will be transportable, and not coupled with Kaizoku.NET)
• Integration with third-party tracking services instead

[maxpiva]

BTW, docker tag 2.0 includes the above WIP if anyone is brave enough to test it. So far it works on my machine, but keep in mind it recreates the database, so please back up your config directory first. The migration worked locally, though a few gremlins may still be lurking 😉

[balgerion]

Just migrated and it looks like all is working - just needed two reboots after initial migration - had some minor problems with providers .
And its using only half resources compared to 1.0

1.0 wa siting at around 800-900

[maxpiva]

I will add Mangafire and MangaDex as providers to reproduce and investigate the issue.

Regarding MangaDex, I believe they have moved to a catalog-only model and no longer provide direct page access. In any case, the bugs appear to be related to preference handling, most likely originating from the Android compatibility layer 💢.

Currently, sources that are no longer reachable (i.e., the application cannot connect to or is experiencing issues with the online provider) are migrated and marked as local sources. The UI does not yet clearly differentiate them yet. However, if you open a series, you will notice that the “Match Source” button is enabled, meaning the previous relation is lost, and converted to local series.

This indicates that the series is no longer linked to an active provider but is instead tagged as one. This typically occurs when a provider no longer exists or is no longer supported (e.g., ComicK).

One current issue is that if the migration does not complete successfully, it may leave the /config directory in an inconsistent state. I recommend renaming the backup database back to kaizoku.db and running the migration again to see if the preference-related issues are resolved, especially with the extensions already installed.

Conceptually, we have three types of providers, but the UI currently manages only two:

Local Series Provider
A provider that previously existed but no longer has online connectivity (e.g., Mihon no longer supports it or it could not be matched during migration). These typically represent providers that no longer exist.

Unknown Series Provider
A provider that cannot be identified. This usually happens when importing an existing collection that cannot be mapped to a provider name.

Online Provider
A provider that is properly linked to a Mihon extension and has active online connectivity.

The first one, is not handled right now by the UI.

[maxpiva]

@balgerion @ev0rtex @Quickkill0 @WhatTheShuck
I just created a Discord channel. If you’d like to hang out, discuss things, or blame me for something I probably did (which I will neither confirm nor deny), feel free to join. I might not respond immediately, you know, real life.

https://discord.gg/WksHPzXE

[zKusuriuri]

Link has been disabled / no longer is valid.

Could you please upload it again :) ?

[WhatTheShuck]

+1.
Haven't got a ton of time right now for everything I'd like (work picked up), but happy to contribute back as time allows. The last link just slipped my mind and todo list

[theDispare]

Hello together. I am trying to get this working. Booted everything up. changed

environment:
    - UMASK=022
    - PGID=${PGID}
    - UID=${PUID}

But the files in /config are still 99 / 100 and therefore the /series folder gets a permission denied because it is using the wrong user. Equivalently if i use user: "${PUID}:${PGID}" it directly breaks on start:

Group with GID 100 already exists: users
Creating user 'kaizoku' with UID 99
useradd: Permission denied.
useradd: cannot lock /etc/group; try again later.

Also after Adding mangadex as a provider i always got an error 400 when trying to save and later access the settings for this provider. And also I think after adding mangadex it starting fetching for "newly" manga and afterwards i got "hopefully temporarily" banned from mangadex. Probably too much requests?

Best Regards

[maxpiva]

Thanks @theDispare will add the above to my bucket list. It might take a few days.

[theDispare]

Thank you very much. (Although the api 400 error now somehow does not appear again for mangadex)
While waiting for the id fix i tried your app a little bit. I love this permanent/temporary style and also the ability to select specific groups. But imagine the scenario where a group drops a manga and another one picks it up to publish. for example on mangadex. then i would never get an update on this series again because i have not selected this new group as a source (because it was not there at creation of this manga)? If this is true, an option would be good to just download any chapter that is not present in the library yet?

Also is there an option to set the naming of the downloaded chapters? And the last question: Can you see a list of the chapters and download individual ones?

Thanks and keep up the good work. Your app looks very clean.

PS: I had a look in the Dockerfile/entrypoint.

• Is there a reason to set 777, you should just remove this?

• Also you set PUID=${PUID:-99} but in the provided docker compose you set: - UID=99 . So it never matches. Changing it in the compose to - PUID=${PUID} fixes this and the /series folder now works

• i would prever if everything would run as non root as written in above comment (in compose: user: "${PUID}:${PGID}") . If you use this the user creation/checking part should be absolete

I am no expert but something with the user checking is wrong because when i start the container with my id the permissions for /config inside the container say: drwxrwxrwx 7 kaizoku users 4096 Apr 15 13:19 config
Although my username is a different one.

[maxpiva]

You’re welcome 🙂

Apologies for the lack of update, I’ll be back on track. Real life took priority for a bit.

Your scenario is absolutely valid, but it does get tricky given our current limitations:

• Discovery is source-dependent
  We can only discover series from sources that are installed. Even if Series A, B, or C exist in other extensions, we currently have no visibility into them.
• No universal identifier for series
  There’s no central primary key across sources. Matching is done by name, and as you know, different translations can result in different titles for the same series across providers.

What we can improve

Given these constraints, a practical next step would be:

Provide a view that highlights:
Series without providers
Series with providers that have accumulated errors
A notification system, that notifies the user when a source drops a series or is broken, and the affected series.

This would allow users to manually add alternative sources when needed.

I believe @Quickkill0 was already working on something along these lines.

About IDs (777, GUID, PUID)

There’s no strong reason behind that choice, it was mostly added without much thought.

Contributions

We’re always open to improvements:

Feel free to submit a PR
Or even propose a script/change if you think we missed the mark

[theDispare]

Thanks.

I will try to propose a change. A local dockerbuild should be feasable for me.

Regarding the source question i think you interpreted it differently. I will try to rephrase it.

I only have one provider. Imagine it is mangadex here. A series on mangadex can be translated by different groups (e.g. single chapters by different groups or multiple groups). Each group is counted as a source. There are also groups that drop a series and another group continues it. Will this series then get the new chapters although the new group is not in the sources list for this series?

And one other question: Are you not parsing volume Metadata?

[maxpiva]

The combination of provider + group is what we consider a Kaizoku source.

While this specific feature isn’t supported today, it would be feasible to introduce in the future, likely as a configurable flag/checkbox.

Your use case
You’re subscribed to:
MangaDex → Series → Group 1
At some point, Group 1 stops releasing chapters
A new or existing Group 2 continues releasing the same series.
Expected behavior

You’d like an option where:

When a new chapter is detected
And it does not belong to your current subscription (provider / series / group)
The system automatically subscribes you to the new group most likely as a temporary until you changed to permanent.
A notification is issued about the added subscription.

Correct?

We parse, and we include I think in the filename of the chapter, but we don't show it in the UI.
And about naming, the idea is had it normalized, for reimports.

[theDispare]

Yes this is exactly the case and your proposal sounds very good!

With my tests with mangadex there is only a volume in the "Title" metadata field and therefore would not be recognized by for example kavita. I really like the extended metadata that kaizoku.net provides and as it already parses volume it would be perfekt if it justs puts this information also into the metadata. Then Kavita would simply get all the information, regardless of the filename that could stay so for normalizing.

Maybe also include the Summary metadata?
I really am not that confident in implementing but i could have a look into it. If there is a central part for metadata i could possible handle it.

This is an Example downloaded with Kaizoku.NET: [MangaDex-⁄u⁄ Scanlations][en] Convenient Semi-Friend 01.cbz

[theDispare]

So I now can build everything but looking at the code i see that ChapterDownloads.cs simply does not provide Volume or Summary. Is there a way to see how these are even filled or where i can look at to see what data i actually get from a request and where it is mapped? I am a little bit overwhelmed.
And also also als shown in the picture above. Somewhere the Volume ist parsed and Forwarded as a Titel. Probably the summary is also available somewhere.

Neverveless i will update the user and permission stuff ;-)

[maxpiva]

Important: this repository will be renamed to Rensaio in the next few minutes.

Version 1.0 is already available on Docker:

maxpiva/rensaio:latest

It can be used over an existing Kaizoku.Net Docker installation without any changes, but backup config directory including the database, just in case.

Discord has also changed, and the new website is:

www.rensaio.net

Everything looks feature-complete for Kaizoku 2.0 → Rensaio. You can check the additional goodies on www.rensaio.net or in the branch README, but I think everyone is going to like it.

There are also two new projects:

The web landing page — very simple.
An OAuth proxy server, Cloudflare Workers version, used to keep the app’s OAuth secrets secure.

A note about scrobblers: MangaDex and AniList are not working yet.

MangaDex is currently blocked because we do not have API permission yet. I still need to investigate that.

AniList is blocked because they appear to ban Cloudflare Workers by default. We will need to contact them and ask them to whitelist ours.

Sorry again, @Quickkill0. I know you already worked on some PRs, bear with me.

Please ask your favorite agent to recreate the PR, most likely against main in the new repo, since there have been a lot of changes. Please test it before opening the PR.

I spent a lot of time making this thing stable, and I do not expect any major changes from here.

[xInsertx]

Been tracking the project since original version - looks promising for an initial release. Some feedback things if your interested:

1. Library: I would probably add a category filter to the library overview page.
2. Library: I would add a filter for series status.
3. Library: If a series has its downloads paused - maybe a status icon or something should be displayed?
4. UI: Some form of line break / demarcation on the left hand bar for segment sections would be good. (Personally i think the icon ordering probably needs abit of work, but that's a personal opinion.)
5. Series: An option to re-download a specific chapter would be useful. (you can kind of do this by deleting it and running verify).
6. Series: It would visually be nice if a source marked as Permanent had its own tag if multiple sources are included.
7. Series: With sources, I think you could cut down on duplication of info on this page. I think it gets abit crowded with multiple selected. It might be useful having it like a table with less info, what 3 options are toggled and if you click it you get a overlay with the current info.
8. Extensions: Some providers seem to not be installing (Mangadex is an example, but WC and webtoons look good)
9. Series: Option to refresh the series metadata?
10. Misc: With the images inside of cbz files - is it possible to change the naming scheme to just xxx.ext

Anyways my 2c from playing around with it for abit.

Keep up the good work =)

edit: Oo i just noticed that i dont think pause download is respected when you add an additional source. It still had it was paused on the series page, but was downloading new chapters.

[maxpiva]

Thanks for the feedback.

1. Yes, it is planned. My only concern is overcrowding the top header.
2. Good idea. But 1.
3. Good idea. A pause icon would be nice.
4. I am not sure about that one; I think we are getting into subjective territory. There is already a separator line between the external links. Also, did you try a hard refresh with Ctrl+F5? There have been some UI changes.
5. This was somewhat planned. The problem is that the series page is already a bit messy, and adding chapters there could make it worse. I am open to suggestions on how to handle it cleanly.
6. Good idea.
7. Good call.
8. I will look into it. MangaDex was working before.
9. I think this is already handled, although it may be buried. We check it every time we look for new chapters, since we need the current series status to create alerts on the status page.
10. Probably possible through appSettings. I am not very interested in adding it right now, unless more people need it. What is your use case?

Thanks again.

The pause-download issue is probably a bug. Let me check it.

[maxpiva]

1. Done 3) Done 8) (Mangadex working, check others). Add Source issues fixed. also.

[xInsertx]

that was quick =)

Library Filters: If your feeling its getting to crowded, maybe you could break into a advanced or show more version for the less used stuff? I've not looked at it on mobile yet but it didn't look to bad on PC.

MangaDex: Yep extension is working now - i should have grabbed the log, it was throwing an exception prior to drawing the options module. I had tried a few other common ones and they all worked.

4: Definitely subjective. I do have mixed feeling about the sidebar, but its perfectly usable.

5: edit: actually thinking on it, maybe you could handle it kind of like sonarr episode section, that would scale with long running series, be fairly mobile/resource friendly, and you could have icons to do certain actions?

9: Makes sense - having a manually trigger might be useful but then maybe a manual check for update would be better seems it would do the same thing?

10: Part OCD, Part comparability - I've had weird issues before in some viewers were long or weird filenames inside the containers caused issues. My own ingestion script that I've been using for a few years (linked to fmd2) actually cleans this up when it pops up.

If you need assistance testing over the next few weeks - I don't mind assisting as I have a fairly extensive library across multiple source types and I can just spin up a new instance as needed.

[xInsertx]

Playing with the latest image - wow those some nice UI rework - ill have to spend some more time in it before providing more detailed feedback.

More minor things (wasn't sure if you want issues yet.

1: The top bar menu is having search squashed over top in certain sizes:

2: Browse filter has multi select (which is neat) - this might make sense to have on the library page - maybe at-least for gene? Not sure about the rest.

3: In the menu - is trackers and the Scrobbler / Tracking in settings the same? It might make sense to either a) remove one or the other / b) change the link in the menu to link to settings page?

4: Settings page (kind of links back to point 3) might make sense to break into section/tabs? Seems you have multi user support, server settings should prob be in its own section.

5: Notification support: This would be an amazing feature (but clearly a big one, so maybe a roadmap item). Notifications should support or the usual suspects. Downloads should support notification batching (so if multiple chapters download for a series you get a single alert, not one per chapter).

6: The Add Series / Add to Library prompts - i think you should remove the transparency. Very distracting.

7: Can we get an about section in the menu or settings - just to easily get build/version info. this could be expanded later on.

Let me know if you rather I move any further conversation to discord or issues. I'll spend abit more time playing around on the weekend.

Keep up the great work - this is looking to be an amazing app for this space.

[Quickkill0]

Ill compile a list of all the different issues you found and look over some of the requests when i have some free time. Be sure max is cool with and understands, any additions you are asking for before i do any work.

[maxpiva]

Let’s discuss this on Discord. I do not think we should bloat it; it needs to remain simple and easy to use.

Regarding notifications, in my opinion they can become a pain because they accumulate quickly and create an obligation to review and mark them as seen. Over time, that can lead to a “boy who cried wolf” effect, where people start ignoring them altogether.

[Quickkill0]

I forgot to mention im not sure how max feels about it but i would prefer issues opened as it helps me organize my work.

[xInsertx]

not sure what are you referring with 3. Trackers is a dialog that permits you to connect to scrobbler trackers.

For 3 - is the dialog from top right menu (Tracker) the same as the section in the settings page? I haven't linked anything so I couldn't check but it seems weird (or an oversight) to have the same options (or a duplication of them) in 2 spots.

The only difference I could see was the settings page version has the Sync All button.

Regarding notifications, in my opinion they can become a pain because they accumulate quickly and create an obligation to review and mark them as seen.

Fair point - I only mentioned it because as the project gets more traction it will almost certainly come up.

[xInsertx]

I forgot to mention im not sure how max feels about it but i would prefer issues opened as it helps me organize my work.

@Quickkill0 I'll raise issues for bugs going forwards - but given alot of this was feedback (which is very subjective) I didn't want to fill issues for what amounts to discussion.

Did you want me to raise an issue for menu bug above (point 1) and feature request for the about or version info? (point 7)