One book that Calibre can't convert - is there hope?

[Jochen K.]

Hopefully this isn't a double -the first time I clicked "Submit" nothing appeared to happen.
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Hi,

I finally took the plunge and converted all my 1500+ ebooks to the same format with the wonderful Calibre.

About 1100 of them were from my little Palm Centro with its 4cm*4cm screen.

I was especially looking forward to reading one particular book on the (relatively) giant screen of my Sony reader.

Of course, Murphy's Law came into effect - that .pdb file was the only one that could not be converted.

Is there any hope for it, or will I have to read it again on the Small Screen (where, I just checked, it displays perfectly)?

Regards,

Jochen

Spoiler:

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Here's the Error Message:

Konvertiere Buch 1 von 1 (Legend 6463)
C:\Program Files\Calibre2\pylib.zip\dateutil\parser.py:336: UnicodeWarning: Unicode equal comparison failed to convert both arguments to Unicode - interpreting them as being unequal
Resolved conversion options
calibre version: 0.9.15
{'asciiize': False,
'author_sort': None,
'authors': None,
'base_font_size': 0.0,
'book_producer': None,
'change_justification': u'original',
'chapter': u"//*[((name()='h1' or name()='h2') and re:test(., '\\s*((chapter|book|section|part)\\s+)|((prolog|pr ologue|epilogue)(\\s+|$))', 'i')) or @class = 'chapter']",
'chapter_mark': u'pagebreak',
'comments': None,
'cover': None,
'debug_pipeline': None,
'dehyphenate': True,
'delete_blank_paragraphs': True,
'disable_font_rescaling': False,
'duplicate_links_in_toc': False,
'embed_font_family': None,
'enable_heuristics': False,
'extra_css': None,
'filter_css': u'',
'fix_indents': True,
'font_size_mapping': None,
'force_max_line_length': False,
'format_scene_breaks': True,
'html_unwrap_factor': 0.4,
'inline_toc': False,
'input_encoding': None,
'input_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.InputProfile object at 0x0000000004ED2710>,
'insert_blank_line': False,
'insert_blank_line_size': 0.5,
'insert_metadata': False,
'isbn': None,
'italicize_common_cases': True,
'keep_color': False,
'keep_image_references': False,
'keep_ligatures': False,
'keep_links': False,
'language': None,
'level1_toc': None,
'level2_toc': None,
'level3_toc': None,
'line_height': 0.0,
'linearize_tables': False,
'margin_bottom': 5.0,
'margin_left': 5.0,
'margin_right': 5.0,
'margin_top': 5.0,
'markup_chapter_headings': True,
'max_line_length': 0,
'max_toc_links': 50,
'minimum_line_height': 120.0,
'newline': u'system',
'no_chapters_in_toc': False,
'no_inline_navbars': False,
'output_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.GenericEink object at 0x0000000004ED2A90>,
'page_breaks_before': u"//*[name()='h1' or name()='h2']",
'prefer_metadata_cover': False,
'pretty_print': False,
'pubdate': None,
'publisher': None,
'rating': None,
'read_metadata_from_opf': u'C:\\Users\\admin\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calibre_ 0.9.15_tmp_k8l8ma\\_nzne_.opf',
'remove_fake_margins': True,
'remove_first_image': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing_indent_size': 1.5,
'renumber_headings': True,
'replace_scene_breaks': u'',
'search_replace': '[]',
'series': None,
'series_index': None,
'smarten_punctuation': False,
'sr1_replace': None,
'sr1_search': None,
'sr2_replace': None,
'sr2_search': None,
'sr3_replace': None,
'sr3_search': None,
'start_reading_at': None,
'subset_embedded_fonts': False,
'tags': None,
'timestamp': None,
'title': None,
'title_sort': None,
'toc_filter': None,
'toc_threshold': 6,
'txt_output_encoding': u'utf-8',
'txt_output_formatting': u'plain',
'unsmarten_punctuation': False,
'unwrap_lines': True,
'use_auto_toc': False,
'verbose': 2}
InputFormatPlugin: PDB Input running
on C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_0.9.15_t mp_k8l8ma\ifkbn3.pdb
Detected ebook format as: eReader with identity: PNRdPPrs
202 byte header version found.
Python function terminated unexpectedly
Unknown book version 3. (Error Code: 1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site.py", line 132, in main
File "site.py", line 109, in run_entry_point
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\ipc\worker.py", line 186, in main
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\convert\gui_conversion.py", line 31, in gui_convert_override
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\convert\gui_conversion.py", line 25, in gui_convert
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plumber.py", line 1009, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\customize\conversion.py", line 239, in __call__
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plugins\pdb_inp ut.py", line 31, in convert
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\pdb\ereader\reader.py", line 24, in __init__
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\pdb\ereader\reader202.py", line 48, in __init__
calibre.ebooks.pdb.ereader.EreaderError: Unknown book version 3.

[kovidgoyal]

The PDB input plugin in calibre hasn't seen any development in a long time, so it's unlikely.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by Jochen K.

Is there any hope for it, or will I have to read it again on the Small Screen (where, I just checked, it displays perfectly)?

Non-DRMed books have 2 or 4 as a version, not 3. Could it be a DRM-infested book? If so, Google for 'Apprentice Alf' and follow the instructions found there for eReader format books.