Conversion failure, Delphi Complete Works of Jules Verne (Illustrated)

[AlanRoberts]

Had a promotion to use up at Amazon, so I picked up some low-cost eBooks. Attempting to convert:

Delphi Complete Works of Jules Verne (Illustrated)
(48.8MB AZW)

to epub is failing. Job log has:

Failed to parse content in <longname>.html
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
MemoryError

Referenced file u'<longname>.html' not in manifest
Parsing <longnameL.html ...
Failed to read from manifest entry with id: added, ignoring
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
MemoryError

Spine item 'id1' not found
Python function terminated unexpectedly
Spine is empty (Error Code: 1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
calibre.ebooks.oeb.base.OEBError: Spine is empty

Is this forum the correct place to report more detail, attach files, ask for help? Should I be in some other form or tracking system instead?

Thanks,
Alan Roberts

[kovidgoyal]

Use the 64bit version of calibre on a computer with lots of RAM and the conversion should work fine.

[AlanRoberts]

My only platform is Windows XP Pro 32-bit. Am I correct in assuming that the 64-bit version of calibre won't operate on this platform?

Thanks,
Alan

[itimpi]

Originally Posted by AlanRoberts

My only platform is Windows XP Pro 32-bit. Am I correct in assuming that the 64-bit version of calibre won't operate on this platform?

Thanks,
Alan

Yes. You need both 64-bit capable hardware and a 64-bit Operating system running on that hardware to run 64-bit Calibre.

It appears that the conversion of that particular book needs more RAM than the 32b-it version of Calibre can handle which is why it is failing. Maybe you have a friend with a suitable machine that can do the conversion for you?

[Section8]

You may be able to use the kindleunpack plugin to just repackage this to an epub - if it's the newer amazon kf8 format.

[AnotherCat]

I saw this problem experienced by another elsewhere some time ago with the big Delphi Classics, so I ran a test, just out of interest using the Dickens collection (a little bigger than the Verne one) epub (not azw) as the source on a 64 bit, but only 4GB RAM machine.

I cannot remember if I tried an epub to epub conversion or an epub to mobi or azw now, but whatever it failed after a long run and I did not persevere.

My suggestion would be to go to the Kobo discount code sticky thread https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=115233 in the Deals, Freebies and Resources forum and get a discount code for the Kobo store; you will then be able to buy an epub of Delphi's Verne for next to nothing (which is what I have done for a few I wanted).

[AlanRoberts]

Thanks everyone. I've got the 64-bit version crunching away on a borrowed Win7 machine ... Sitting at 67% done, grinding through the "Splitting on page-break at id=" part of the work, with a working set that seems to have leveled out at 3.1GB. I'll let that either complete or fail before I throw more money at the collection.

[cathaven]

I'd be interested in knowing how that worked out for you AlanRoberts. I'm having the same problem with just 3 of the many Delphi Classics collections I own. Size isn't the only factor, as I have successfully converted several, which are larger than the smallest one that keeps failing on me. Acquiring a copy in the correct format isn't the issue for me. I was trying to tweak the metadata, so it would always display it the way I want, even if I had to add it to my library again from scratch at some point. I'd like items in the TOC to show up in searches & I want the author in the author field, not "Unknown", which is what the Delphi .prc files have.

Just for the hell of it, I'll copy/paste the text from the conversion & the problem signature.

Spoiler:

Convert book 1 of 1 (Complete Works of H. Rider Haggard)
Resolved conversion options
calibre version: 2.12.0
{'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': u'C:\\Users\\Jim\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calibre_sq goeg\\fm32g0.jpeg',
'debug_pipeline': None,
'dehyphenate': True,
'delete_blank_paragraphs': True,
'disable_font_rescaling': False,
'dont_compress': False,
'duplicate_links_in_toc': False,
'embed_all_fonts': False,
'embed_font_family': None,
'enable_heuristics': False,
'expand_css': False,
'extra_css': None,
'extract_to': None,
'filter_css': u'',
'fix_indents': True,
'font_size_mapping': None,
'format_scene_breaks': True,
'html_unwrap_factor': 0.4,
'input_encoding': None,
'input_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.InputProfile object at 0x02BB37F0>,
'insert_blank_line': False,
'insert_blank_line_size': 0.5,
'insert_metadata': False,
'isbn': None,
'italicize_common_cases': True,
'keep_ligatures': 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_toc_links': 50,
'minimum_line_height': 120.0,
'mobi_file_type': u'old',
'mobi_ignore_margins': False,
'mobi_keep_original_images': False,
'mobi_toc_at_start': False,
'no_chapters_in_toc': False,
'no_inline_navbars': True,
'no_inline_toc': True,
'output_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.KindleDXOutput object at 0x02BB3B50>,
'page_breaks_before': u"//*[name()='h1' or name()='h2']",
'personal_doc': u'[PDOC]',
'prefer_author_sort': False,
'prefer_metadata_cover': False,
'pretty_print': False,
'pubdate': None,
'publisher': None,
'rating': None,
'read_metadata_from_opf': u'C:\\Users\\Jim\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calibre_sq goeg\\gspcsl.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,
'share_not_sync': False,
'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,
'toc_title': None,
'unsmarten_punctuation': False,
'unwrap_lines': True,
'use_auto_toc': False,
'verbose': 2}
InputFormatPlugin: MOBI Input running
on C:\Users\Jim\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_sqgoeg\hsw wyb.prc
Extracting text...
Adding anchors...
Extracting images...
Cleaning up HTML...

Parsing HTML...

Converting style information to CSS...

Creating OPF...

Parsing all content...
Parsing index.html ...

At this point it crashes.

Here's the problem signature...

Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: calibre-parallel.exe
Application Version: 2.12.0.0
Application Timestamp: 5477f45d
Fault Module Name: libxml2.dll
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 5368b3b4
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0003b72e
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 2057
Additional Information 1: 0a9e
Additional Information 2: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
Additional Information 3: 0a9e
Additional Information 4: 0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

I've always suspected it was a resources issue, so, unless anyone can see any other reason for it, I'll try again once I've built my new 64 bit computer.

[eschwartz]

The problem is not size, it is complexity. If the code is convoluted, calibre requires a lot more work to parse it and generate clean output. This is a fairly standard conversion issue (not incredibly common, but a known pitfall) and yes, the only real solution is to increase the RAM, which means 64-bit calibre.