E-book viewer takes forever to load flow

Iznogood · 04-06-2013, 01:11 PM

I'm running calibre 0.9.26 (newest version). When I open one of my mobi books from amazon in the e-book viewer, it shows the cover of the book almost immediately. But when I click on the arrow for the next page, it says it's "Loading flow" and the window goes gray (I'm running Ubuntu, and gray windows mean that something isn't responding). After about 40-45 seconds, the title page shows up in the viewer, and from there I can browse inside my book at normal speed.

It's a recent install of Calibre, with just about 300 books in the library. I have installed kindleunpack, but that's the only modification I remember having done. I don't think I have plugins to remove DRM in Calibre as I use the standalone tools to do that. DRM from the book was removed before the book was imported to calibre. During import, no errors or warnings were displayed.

The command

Code:

calibre --verbose

doesn't report any crashes or errors. But it's a large book. Kindleunpack gives me a 2MB html file that opens without problems in firefox, and a ops file and ncx file that I cannot find any errors in. When I use calibre to send the book to my kindle, and opens it there, it opens fine and I can immediately begin reading it.

Is there anything in ebook viewer's code that can hang for 40 seconds? It's a huge book (Towers of Midnight, number 13 in the series Wheel of Time), but not that huge. The rest of the books in this series loads in about 10 seconds. There could of course be errors in the DRM'ed version I downloaded directly from Amazon, and/or there could have happened something to the file when I removed the DRM. But my kindle opens the same file fine, so it doesn't sound like there is a problem with the file itself.

Have any of you experienced something similar?

jgaiser · 04-06-2013, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iznogood

Have any of you experienced something similar?

Yes, regularly. I don't *think* it's every mobi, but it does seem to happen often. I'll have to see if it just happens on large books or how often.

Also running Ubuntu 12.04.2

Edit: Definately related to book/file size. I know that there's a mobi-epub conversion before display and I've just assumed that was the slow down.

kovidgoyal · 04-06-2013, 02:57 PM

Convert your mobi files to epub before viewing them.

Iznogood · 04-06-2013, 03:36 PM

The point is that I want to see the mobi version, not the epub version, and converting to epub, viewing the epub and then deleting the epub again is more work than just viewing the original mobi, so I'll rather let calibre do the converting silently in the background.

It was the very long conversion time I was worried about. 40 seconds sounds like a very long conversion time, compared to about 10 seconds at similar books. Could this mean that there is an error in my mobi book that calibre is doing its best to "guess" a solution to, or is 40 seconds conversion time within reasonable limits?

kovidgoyal · 04-06-2013, 03:45 PM

You cant see the mobi version using the calibre viewer. The calibre viewer is an epub viewer. It does a partial convert of the mobi behind the scenes. If you want to view "mobi" then use an actual mobi viewer for the purpose.

If you want to use the calibre viewer to view mobi files, then you have to live with the delays.

Iznogood · 04-06-2013, 05:00 PM

I don't mind the delays at all as long they don't mean that there's something wrong with the mobi file. And as far as I can gather, 40 sec. processing time can be normal with large books?

jgaiser · 04-06-2013, 06:13 PM

The problem I see is that you're not looking at the mobi file. You're at an epub converted from your mobi.

What I've done is to download KindlePreviewer from Amazon and check mobi files with it.

kovidgoyal · 04-06-2013, 11:37 PM

There's no 'normal' processing time. Nor is processing time strictly correlated with file size. If you want to check a mobi file for correctness, pretty much the only way to do it is to read it on a kindle. calibre is far more tolerant of errors than an actual kindle would be.

04-06-2013, 01:11 PM	#1
Iznogood Guru Posts: 932 Karma: 15752887 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Norway Device: Ipad, kindle paperwhite	E-book viewer takes forever to load flow I'm running calibre 0.9.26 (newest version). When I open one of my mobi books from amazon in the e-book viewer, it shows the cover of the book almost immediately. But when I click on the arrow for the next page, it says it's "Loading flow" and the window goes gray (I'm running Ubuntu, and gray windows mean that something isn't responding). After about 40-45 seconds, the title page shows up in the viewer, and from there I can browse inside my book at normal speed. It's a recent install of Calibre, with just about 300 books in the library. I have installed kindleunpack, but that's the only modification I remember having done. I don't think I have plugins to remove DRM in Calibre as I use the standalone tools to do that. DRM from the book was removed before the book was imported to calibre. During import, no errors or warnings were displayed. The command Code: calibre --verbose doesn't report any crashes or errors. But it's a large book. Kindleunpack gives me a 2MB html file that opens without problems in firefox, and a ops file and ncx file that I cannot find any errors in. When I use calibre to send the book to my kindle, and opens it there, it opens fine and I can immediately begin reading it. Is there anything in ebook viewer's code that can hang for 40 seconds? It's a huge book (Towers of Midnight, number 13 in the series Wheel of Time), but not that huge. The rest of the books in this series loads in about 10 seconds. There could of course be errors in the DRM'ed version I downloaded directly from Amazon, and/or there could have happened something to the file when I removed the DRM. But my kindle opens the same file fine, so it doesn't sound like there is a problem with the file itself. Have any of you experienced something similar?

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04-06-2013, 02:57 PM	#3
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,858 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Convert your mobi files to epub before viewing them.

04-06-2013, 03:36 PM	#4
Iznogood Guru Posts: 932 Karma: 15752887 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Norway Device: Ipad, kindle paperwhite	The point is that I want to see the mobi version, not the epub version, and converting to epub, viewing the epub and then deleting the epub again is more work than just viewing the original mobi, so I'll rather let calibre do the converting silently in the background. It was the very long conversion time I was worried about. 40 seconds sounds like a very long conversion time, compared to about 10 seconds at similar books. Could this mean that there is an error in my mobi book that calibre is doing its best to "guess" a solution to, or is 40 seconds conversion time within reasonable limits?

04-06-2013, 03:45 PM	#5
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,858 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	You cant see the mobi version using the calibre viewer. The calibre viewer is an epub viewer. It does a partial convert of the mobi behind the scenes. If you want to view "mobi" then use an actual mobi viewer for the purpose. If you want to use the calibre viewer to view mobi files, then you have to live with the delays.

04-06-2013, 05:00 PM	#6
Iznogood Guru Posts: 932 Karma: 15752887 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Norway Device: Ipad, kindle paperwhite	I don't mind the delays at all as long they don't mean that there's something wrong with the mobi file. And as far as I can gather, 40 sec. processing time can be normal with large books?

04-06-2013, 06:13 PM	#7
jgaiser Omnivorous Posts: 3,281 Karma: 27978909 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Rural NW Oregon Device: Kindle Voyage, Kindle Fire HD, Kindle 3, KPW1	The problem I see is that you're not looking at the mobi file. You're at an epub converted from your mobi. What I've done is to download KindlePreviewer from Amazon and check mobi files with it.

04-06-2013, 11:37 PM	#8
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,858 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	There's no 'normal' processing time. Nor is processing time strictly correlated with file size. If you want to check a mobi file for correctness, pretty much the only way to do it is to read it on a kindle. calibre is far more tolerant of errors than an actual kindle would be.

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