Wizard runs every time on start up

[Sentireader]

Hi,
I just transfered my Calibre library from one PC to another. The first time I started Calibre it ran the wizard and found my library and metadata fine. But when I open Calibre again it runs the wizard again and again every time I start the program Any ideas how I could fix this?

I'm running Ubuntu Lucid

[kovidgoyal]

presumably your ~/.config directory has incorrect permission so calibre stores its settings in /tmp which gets cloberred.

[Adoby]

Check that the hidden directory ~/.config/calibre exists and that you have both read and write rights there. If Calibre is unable to update the information there, it will run the wizard again next time you launch.

Edit: Too slow. How do you delete a post here?

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by Adoby

Edit: Too slow. How do you delete a post here?

Certain nuclear devices will produce an electromagnetic pulse that will wipe ..... no, perhaps that's a bit extreme.

[Sentireader]

The .config folder's permission settings are the same as on my Ubuntu PC that has Calibre working, which was surprising. I did see a bunch of Calibre folders in the /tmp folder so you are both right about the problem. I did a gksu nautilus and tried to change the permissions of the .config folder but that did not work. Any thoughts? Also, why would only one of two fresh installs of Ubuntu have this problem? Thanks

[Sentireader]

OK, I just created a folder named calibre in the .config folder. That seemed to solve the problem. Thanks for your help.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Sentireader

OK, I just created a folder named calibre in the .config folder. That seemed to solve the problem. Thanks for your help.

I'm glad to see the problem is resolved.

[Adoby]

Originally Posted by Sentireader

The .config folder's permission settings are the same as on my Ubuntu PC that has Calibre working, which was surprising. I did see a bunch of Calibre folders in the /tmp folder so you are both right about the problem. I did a gksu nautilus and tried to change the permissions of the .config folder but that did not work. Any thoughts? Also, why would only one of two fresh installs of Ubuntu have this problem? Thanks

If you did a reinstall and used a partition, without reformatting it, or copied it from another computer, you may get a different combination of user name and numeric user id. And StrangeThings™ happen.

When you add a user in Ubuntu they typically are assigned a numeric user id from 1000 and up. If you have more than one user on the same computer, and no centralized login-server, the same user name may end up with another numeric user id in a new or different install, if you create the users in another order.

So after a reinstall you may end up with a home directory with your user name, but some other users numerical id. So even if it has your user name, you can't write to it. The same thing may happen if you copy files and directories between two computers, and don't make sure that they both use exactly the same combination user name / user id.

You can check the user name / user id combination under System | Administration | Users and Groups. Go advanced.

The easy way out is to always use the exact same user names and always add the users in the exact same order on all computers, using the same OS.

[pchrist7]

Originally Posted by Starson17

Certain nuclear devices will produce an electromagnetic pulse that will wipe ..... no, perhaps that's a bit extreme.

Agree ! Imagine no electrical power, all electronic devices being fried, only cars on the road would the classics and no mechanics know how to adjust a carburator.
Let's not do that

[theducks]

Originally Posted by pchrist7

Agree ! Imagine no electrical power, all electronic devices being fried, only cars on the road would the classics and no mechanics know how to adjust a carburator.
Let's not do that

HeY!
I can still adjust and Balance SU carburetors

(Old A H Sprite driver)

[bleriot]

I'm afraid that the problem is NOT related to reinstallation using different users.

Yesterday, I fresh-installed calibre in my daughter's Ubuntu 9.10 laptop and I had exactly the same problem. I even changed the permissions on every directory leading to /.config with no success at all. Calibre kept complaining about the .config directory every time I tried to start it (using the command line) and the wizard appeared too.

Today I have just fresh-installed the last version of calibre in my old Ubuntu 9.10 desktop computer and I had again the same problem. The script installing calibre says:

"No write acces to /home/bleriot/.config/calibre using a temporary dir instead"

Since I have no access today to my daughter's laptop, I decided to check the solution posted in my old desktop; I created the calibre folder inside .config, leaving the permissions of all the directories in the hierarchy (starting from /home) UNTOUCHED.

This indeed did the trick; the wizard appeared no more and the changes in the preferences are correctly saved (which didn't happen before, of course!)

Since NONE of both computers had had a previous calibre installation, I assume that the problem with the .permissions of the config directory are caused by some error / bug in calibre install script.

Perhaps Kovid would like to take a look to this problem...

Oh! I forgot to mention that the version of calibre showing this problem is 0.7.16.

Bleriot

[kovidgoyal]

See http://bugs.calibre-ebook.com/ticket/6672