Switching databases

[plusunim]

Hi all.

I'm having a problem with switching databases. I suddenly cannot access one of them. An error (E1) popped up at first. On retrying to switch and on the program's advice I tried to restore the DB, but got an error (E2). I'm pasting the errors I got. I would appreciate some help or advice in what to do to get back access to the DB. If you require more information do ask. At the moment I have no idea what information would be useful to you people.

regards,
plusunim

---------------------------
E1 ->

calibre, version 1.40.0
ERROR: Unhandled exception: <b>UnicodeDecodeError</b>:'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0x8b in position 226: invalid start byte

calibre 1.40 [64bit] isfrozen: True is64bit: True
Windows-7-6.1.7601-SP1 Windows ('64bit', 'WindowsPE')
('Windows', '7', '6.1.7601')
Python 2.7.5
Windows: ('7', '6.1.7601', 'SP1', 'Multiprocessor Free')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\__init__.py", line 398, in dispatch
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\actions\choose_library.py", line 541, in switch_requested
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\ui.py", line 607, in library_moved
File "site-packages\calibre\db\legacy.py", line 70, in __init__
File "site-packages\calibre\db\legacy.py", line 44, in create_backend
File "site-packages\calibre\db\backend.py", line 376, in __init__
File "site-packages\calibre\db\backend.py", line 383, in initialize_prefs
File "site-packages\calibre\db\backend.py", line 75, in __init__
File "site-packages\calibre\db\backend.py", line 79, in load_from_db
File "site-packages\calibre\db\backend.py", line 279, in get
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0x8b in position 226: invalid start byte

=============================================
E2 ->

calibre, version 1.40.0
ERROR: Failed: Restoring database failed, click Show details to see details

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\db\restore.py", line 125, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\db\restore.py", line 277, in replace_db
WindowsError: [Error 32] The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process

[kovidgoyal]

Disable your antivirus and any file syncing programs you have that might be accessing the calibre library folders at the same time as calibre and then run restore.

[plusunim]

Thanks for your reply. I did as you asked me but I still have the same situation. Is there a particular file I need to look upon in the calibre system? I might unlock it if that is the problem by discovering which program is still hooked on. I did disable the AV and stop syncing services of program I think I are using calibre files but I might be unaware of some other program.

cheers!

[kovidgoyal]

metadata.db and metadata_pre_restore.db

[plusunim]

Thanks for the suggestion and support. I have solved it now. The db file was corrupted only. Apart from having double entry problems etc which happened while trying to solve the problem, I basically created an empty library and added the books (since they were already pretty organised thanks to Calibre). And that's it! had my 'original' library back and deleted the old one. It was that simple! Thanks for the great program! Keep it up!