Calibre not detecting Sony Reader Daily (PRS-900) on Vista

[adikira]

I recently got the Sony Reader Daily and after frustrations with Sony's software I found out about Calibre. It is wonderful, you can't even compare it to Sony's software. But I can't get it to recognize my device. I'm running Vista.

Here's the output from "calibre-debug.exe -g" and "calibre-debug.exe -d". I've tried rebooting the computer several times at no avail.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

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C:\Program Files\Calibre - E-book Management>calibre-debug -g
link hasn't been detected!
link hasn't been detected!
Unable to open device <calibre.devices.prs700.driver.PRS700 object at 0x02D15250>
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\device.py", line 100, in do_connect
File "site-packages\calibre\devices\prs505\driver.py", line 59, in open
File "site-packages\calibre\devices\usbms\device.py", line 568, in open
File "site-packages\calibre\devices\usbms\device.py", line 286, in open_windows
DeviceError: Unable to detect the PRS700 disk drive. Try rebooting.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\jobs.py", line 97, in update
KeyboardInterrupt


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C:\Program Files\Calibre - E-book Management>calibre-debug -d
USB devices on system: [u'usb\\root_hub&vid8086&pid27c8&rev0002', u'usb\\root_hub&vid8086&pid27cb&rev0002', u'usb\\root_hub&vid8086&pid27c9&rev0002', u'usb\\roo
t_hub&vid8086&pid27ca&rev0002', u'usb\\root_hub20&vid8086&pid27cc&rev0002', u'usb\\vid_0409&pid_005a&rev_0100', u'usb\\vid_054c&pid_02d5&rev_0006', u'usb\\vid_0
54c&pid_031e&rev_031:', u'usb\\vid_05ca&pid_183a&rev_0100', u'usb\\vid_05ca&pid_183a&rev_0100&mi_00', u'usb\\vid_147e&pid_2016&rev_0001', u'usb\\vid_198f&pid_0210&rev_0001']
Drives detected:
(ID, Partitions, Drive letter)
('IDE\\DISKMCBQE48GKMPQ-M1A________________________2.9.00__\\5&A32B53D&0&0 .0.0', 'No mount points found')
('USBSTOR\\DISK&VEN_SONY&PROD_PRS-900&REV_1.00\\0800461000D55C9E&0', 2,u'G:\\')
('USBSTOR\\DISK&VEN_SONY&PROD_PRS-900_LAUNCHER&REV_1.00\\0800461000D55C9E&3', 5, u'K:\\')
('USBSTOR\\DISK&VEN_SONY&PROD_PRS-900_SD&REV_1.00\\0800461000D55C9E&2',4, u'J:\\')
Looking for BEBOOK
Looking for BEBOOK_MINI
Looking for BLACKBERRY
Looking for CYBOOKG3
Looking for EB600
Looking for ILIAD
Looking for IREXDR1000
Looking for JETBOOK
Looking for KINDLE
Looking for KINDLE2
Looking for KINDLE_DX
Looking for PRS500
Looking for PRS505
Looking for PRS700
Looking for ANDROID
Looking for CYBOOK_OPUS
Looking for COOL_ER
Looking for ESLICK
Device possibly connected: <calibre.devices.prs700.driver.PRS700 object at 0x02C40ED0>
Trying to open device... failed
Opening of the following devices failed
<calibre.devices.prs700.driver.PRS700 object at 0x02C40ED0>
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\debug.py", line 113, in debug_device_driver
File "site-packages\calibre\devices\prs505\driver.py", line 59, in open
File "site-packages\calibre\devices\usbms\device.py", line 568, in open
File "site-packages\calibre\devices\usbms\device.py", line 286, in open_windows
DeviceError: Unable to detect the PRS700 disk drive. Try rebooting.


Press Enter to continue...

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Regards,
Adrian

[rmm200]

Forget Calibre until you can see your device as a removable disk in Windows Explore. ADE (or Sony Library) installs a USB driver - and you need that.

Robert

[adikira]

Robert, thanks, I can see the drives in Windows Explorer (actually, I use Total Commander instead). I even did at file system delete of some books. I can also see the device in Sony Library ... so I suppose I have the USB drivers installed.

[rmm200]

Sounds like your USB drivers are OK. Only other thing I can suggest is don't run Sony Library or ADE at the same time as Calibre; there may be some conflict.

I see from your trace, PRS-900 was never checked for. Make sure your version of Calibre supports the 900.

Robert

[JSWolf]

ADE & eBook Library do not install a USB driver to talk to a 700.

[kovidgoyal]

What version of calibre is this, looks like a rather old one.

[adikira]

thanks for your replies, it's the latest version. i tried both at the same time and different times with sony library.

[adikira]

I verified, it's Version: 0.6.43.

Also, the debug info says Calibre attempts to use a prs700 driver: <calibre.devices.prs700.driver.PRS700 object at 0x02C40ED0> while mine is PRS 900. Is that OK or should it use a prs900 instead?

[kovidgoyal]

yes, the prs700 driver supports the 900 as well.

Go to preferences->advanced and click debug device detection and post the output

[adikira]

Kovid, I'had read about "debug device detection" in the FAQ as well (I tried to do my homework) but under Preferences->Advanced I only have these options:

a text field: Maximum number of waiting worker processes (needs restart): 6

a button: Check database integrity

I don't see .... oops.... I see the latest version in listed in bold is 0.6.43 but my version is 0.6.17. Sorry, I misread the version, you were right I have an old one. But I don't understand, I just downloaded last version from: http://calibre-ebook.com/download and now it says 0.6.43 there. Regardless, I'll upgrade and try again.

Thanks!

[kovidgoyal]

uninstall, delete c:\program Files\calibre and c:\program files\calibre2 and re-install

[adikira]

Thanks! I actually reinstalled (without uninstall and delete) the latest version before I had a chance to read your post and ... it worked! calibre rocks! Thanks again!

[adikira]

the only thing for which I seem to still be needing reader library is mass conversion from doc to rtf. I wasn't able to transfer doc to my sony reader through calibre I had to first convert the documents to rtf. If I'm missing something and there is a better way please let me know.

Thanks,
Adrian

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by adikira

the only thing for which I seem to still be needing reader library is mass conversion from doc to rtf. I wasn't able to transfer doc to my sony reader through calibre I had to first convert the documents to rtf. If I'm missing something and there is a better way please let me know.

Calibre doesn't handle Doc files but there are ways to do mass conversions straight to epub from doc as described by frabjous below from another thread.

Originally Posted by frabjous

Laura,

No, what I'm suggesting is a single batch file that will both batch convert your .doc files to .html and then batch convert the .html files to .epub files.

As I noted, the batch file is two lines long:

for %%I in (*.doc) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\AbiWord\bin\AbiWord.exe" --to=html "%%I"
for %%I in (*.html) do "C:\Program Files (x86)\Calibre2\ebook-convert.exe" "%%I" "%%~nI.epub"

Here's what you need to do:

1. Download and install AbiWord. It's completely free.
2. Download and install calibre. It's completely free.
3. Copy and paste the two lines above into Notepad, and save a file named "doc2epub.bat" or anything else whose name you'll remember ending in .bat. Save it in the same folder where your .doc files are.

The lines assume you're using a 64-bit operating system. If not, then use this instead:

for %%I in (*.doc) do "C:\Program Files\AbiWord\bin\AbiWord.exe" --to=html "%%I"
for %%I in (*.html) do "C:\Program Files\Calibre2\ebook-convert.exe" "%%I" "%%~nI.epub"

The only difference is where the .exe files are located. You'll probably want to double check that the programs got installed in the same directories that mine were. I cannot test on a 32-bit version of windows, since I don't have access to one.


4. Navigate in Windows explorer to the folder where your .doc files are, and double click on "doc2epub".

The batch file will convert all the .doc files in the folder to html, and then convert all the .html files to .epub.

There's a lot of tweaking that can be done there to make the script better, especially with regard to how it handles filenames, metadata, etc., but it's hard for me to predict without knowing what your files are like. You might just want to cut and paste the FIRST line, and run that. That will batch convert your files to HTML. You then might want to use the graphical user interface in calibre to batch convert the HTML to ePub. That's really up to you.

[adikira]

Walt, thanks!