Combining large works

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

When combining large works, how long do you usually wait before determining the request has failed and therefore try again?

[Arenda]

When combining really large works (think Jane Austen or Frankenstein) I usually wait 24 hours before I try again.

For other larger combine requests that don't seem to go through, I bookmark them and go work on something else.
Sometimes all combines seem to fail. When some time has gone by (maybe an hour) I will first try a simple combine. When that one goes through, I will go back to my bookmarked combine(s) and try them again.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Thanks, Arenda. The hour time is what I've been using as reasonable. Also, making sure I have really small batches (4-6 editions) to be combined with the large one.

Arenda wrote: "I bookmark them"

I have a spreadsheet, one sheet per author, on which I retain the work IDs of their more popular works and where I can retain the work ID of the batch(es) to be combined. ;-)

[Arenda]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Also, making sure I have really small batches (4-6 editions) to be combined with the large one."

I do it the other way round. First combining all single editions and small groups into one. These are usually recent imports and combining them is pretty quick. And once these are combined, one final combine with the main work.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

I have had trouble with works of more than 10-15 combining with works of 5k and larger.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

The last couple of days, combines of large works have processed more quickly.