Calibre not responsive

[vicwong48]

My calibre installation has basically stopped working. It opens, but whenever I click or hover over the window, the cursor just spins (Mac’s Spinning Pinwheel of Death.) It stops after a few minutes, but the instant I move the cursor, it happens again (I can sometimes get a click in).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

TL;DR follows:

I had it installed on an iMac running 10.12.2 when I first encountered the problem this week. When 10.12.3 came out, I installed that, but still have the problem. I’ve been using Calibre for years and just went over 10,000 books this week (shouldn't be a problem, but coincidental.) The OPDS server feature still works fine with no issues.

I copied a backup of my book database from before the problem, but it didn’t help. I’ve uninstalled calibre, deleted the preferences (folder and plist file), reinstalled the latest version, and am still having the problem.

It seems like it could be my book files since I don’t have the problem if I open a new library and add a dozen books in.

If I create a new library and incrementally add books back in (by Finder copying files into the Calibre folder and then using Calibre’s “Rebuild database” command), it works with about 10% of the books loaded, but adding more causes the same problem. I’m adding by letter, e.g., authors starting with “a”, then “b”, etc. It doesn’t matter which letter I start with and which ones I add next.

I was hoping it might be one bad book file and I could narrow it down, but if that's the case, my experience seems to indicate it may be many randomly scattered throughout my database.

[theducks]

Adding/changing anything inside the Library structure is SERIOUSLY not recommended

Set up an Auto-add folder and drop the books there (those will be deleted from that folder after the are added. Archive those beforehand)

Preferences: Adding Books: Automatic Adding <tab>

[PeterT]

How much memory? Any other system details you care to share? What plugins are in use?

[kovidgoyal]

Look for any debug output in console.app or start calibre in debug mode by running calibre-debug -g in a terminal (use the full path to calibre-debug) as described here: https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/gen...cli-index.html

[vicwong48]

Thanks for the responses.

I have 24 GB ram and not displaying any kind of "pressure". (Eta: 3.4 i7, late 2012 iMac, plenty of drive space.)

I note the recommendation to not add files manually, but these are folders created from my prior use of Calibre; doesn't the "rebuild database" command use the opf files from these folders? (I could drop the epub files back into Calibre and let it rebuild the folder structure that way, but want to retain the metadata I've spent a lot of time on.)

I have a dozen or so plug-ins:
KFX Output
DeDRM
Source plugins: B&N, Fantastic Fiction, Fiction DB and Goodreads
Interface plugins: EpubMerge, EpubSplit, Goodreads Sync, Manage Series, Modify ePub, Open With, Quality Check, Resize Cover, Search the Internet.

I didn't push investigation of plugins since I had removed the preference files (including the plugins) in an earlier trouble shooting step when I reinstalled Calibre. That hadn't helped when it opened my 10k library (still spinning wheel). Also, the plugins don't seem to cause problems when I only have a hundred or so books in the library; there could be a threshold problem.

I'll try the debug. Will do some research on what to look for or test first.

I've always used the GUI, but got into the CLI because of this problem. I'm almost able to do everything I need to do from the command line (I do a lot of editing of the metadata), and have now gotten use to using the web client to view the database. The GUI is still preferable.

I don't know if there's a CLI version of the "download metadata" button, but what I've been doing in the meantime is opening a new blank library, adding my new books to it, clicking download metadata, book conversions and anything else that uses the GUI, then "copy to other library" to merge it with my old library. It's workable for now; I'm hoping a Calibre, OS or plugin update will magically fix the problem in the future (will also transfer to another Mac and see if it's still a problem.)

[vicwong48]

Here's what the calibre-debug results are (I'm running a separate instance of calibre-server which I assume explains the last few error lines):

calibre 2.77 embedded-python: True is64bit: True
Darwin-16.4.0-x86_64-i386-64bit Darwin ('64bit', '')
('Darwin', '16.4.0', 'Darwin Kernel Version 16.4.0: Thu Dec 22 22:53:21 PST 2016; root:xnu-3789.41.3~3/RELEASE_X86_64')
Python 2.7.11
OSX: ('10.12.3', ('', '', ''), 'x86_64')
Successfully initialized third party plugins: DeDRM (6, 4, 3) && Goodreads Sync (1, 10, 1) && Manage Series (1, 2, 8) && Goodreads (1, 1, 12) && Open With (1, 5, 10) && Barnes & Noble (1, 2, 14) && Quality Check (1, 9, 11) && Resize Cover (1, 0, 2) && EpubSplit (2, 2, 0) && EpubMerge (2, 1, 0) && Fantastic Fiction (1, 1, 6) && Search The Internet (1, 7, 6) && Modify ePub (1, 3, 13) && KFX Output (1, 6, 0) && FictionDB (1, 0, 10)
devicePixelRatio: 1.0
logicalDpi: 72.0 x 72.0
physicalDpi: 109.000001637 x 109.000001637
Starting up...
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
libpng warning: iCCP: known incorrect sRGB profile
DEBUG: 0.0 HttpHelper::__init__: proxy=None
EpubMerge: DEBUG: 2017-01-28 13:05:20,115: calibre_plugins.epubmerge.epubmerge_plugin(152): macmenuhack file_path:/Volumes/Rhodes/vic/Library/Preferences/calibre/plugins/fanficfare_macmenuhack.txt
Started up in 6.87 seconds with 10018 books
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages/calibre/library/server/base.py", line 279, in start
File "site-packages/calibre/library/server/base.py", line 272, in start_cherrypy
File "site-packages/cherrypy/process/wspbus.py", line 250, in start
ChannelFailures: IOError("Port 8080 not free on u'10.0.1.2'",)
2017-01-28 13:08:17.992 Calibre[11773:8979683] deliverNotificationWithTitle()
Worker Launch took: 0.234674930573
* Notification delivered.

[kovidgoyal]

Dont see anything suspicous in your debug log.

Note that the fetch-ebook-metadata command is the command line equivalent of download metadata.