Problem with Windows 7 and new calibre versions

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by comtrjl

I meant that after a new installation on a machine where it hadn't previously existed, this should be the state of things, so if there were extra reg entries, or directories, or different ones, they might be related to the problem and worth looking into.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Terisa de morgan]

@BetterRedI've found the entries but I don't understand it. Anyway, no C:\Windows entry there. I think I'm going to take your advice and I'm going to wait for Kovid

@DoctorOhh I'll clean the path and I'll tell you, but I don't feel very hopeful.

@comtrjlI've cleaned the registry between installations.

[comtrjl]

I don't believe the root of the problem has really anything to do with paths, registry entries, file corruption etc. But they are stones that one has to turn just to rule them out.
The sort of problem where a program seems to hang but not crash might be related to something like a device driver - usb device, or network. Like trying to check for updates and being able to transmit packets but not receive any returns because of a firewall, or anti-virus software. Something like that, at least.
If you unplug the network cable, does that make any difference?
If you let the program wait and wait, does it eventually produce an error message?
Does running it as admin make any difference?

bob

[Terisa de morgan]

@comtrjl I think you've hit the nail. If I check the network connections while calibre is blocked, I find this:

Local 127.0.0.1:53124 ESTABLISHED Remote 127.0.0.1:12080

It looks like it's trying to connect to Internet but it isn't being able to. I have avast, but it doesn't block previous versions.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

@comtrjl I think you've hit the nail. If I check the network connections while calibre is blocked, I find this:



It looks like it's trying to connect to Internet but it isn't being able to. I have avast, but it doesn't block previous versions.

Why do you say its not able to connect to 'net ?

127.0.0.1 is your PC. Its often called localhost, or the standard Loopback address, its part of the TCP/IP foundation. If you cant communicate to 127.anything its probably because your computer is turned off 8) and it looks fine to me, more info here http://www.rolo.org/127-0-0-1.html

If you can access this forum via browser on the machine with calibre - then you can obviously get beyond your own computer

When Calibre starts it tries to connect with

Kovid's server (divok.kovidgoyal.net (209.20.65.15)) 
and this forum (mobilread.com(67.205.70.12))

to see if there are new versions of the core or plug ins. I often use Calibre when I have no network, Calibre works fine, doesn't even complain. Try pulling the plug on the network. If you are starting with a device attached then try disconnecting it too.

Trying pinging those domain names and IP addresses, if you can, then nothing is blocking those addresses - makes sense otherwise you would not be able to post here or donload from Kovids servers. Your firewall probably has something called an exclusion list or outbound rules, here one can block programs from accessing the network - but I've not see anything that allows specific versions to be blocked.

But to be certain - turn your firewall off and then try to start calibre - providing you don't surf warez sites and download, and its only for a short time, the risks are negligible. Some Black Hatted 'gurus' hold the view that firewalls are a a waste of time.


You can watch what Calibre does via the Windows Resource Manager Performance Monitor (ctrl/shift/escape then Resource Manager button).

If something is blocking calibre access to the 'net it would probably be your firewall or router rather than your AV. What firewall do you use? Are you behind a corporate proxy server. Are you using a Virtual Private Network.

I think calibre uses the standard HTTP ports, so if your browser works then so should calibre. And why only since 0.8.67 - still doesn't make sense.

I've attached a text file with my Qt registry settings - you might be able make some sense of it if you dump your Qt settings to another text file and do a diff or similar.

BR

[Terisa de morgan]

With Resource Manager:

One or more calibre subprocesses are waiting to finalized network E/S
svchost: LocalServiceNetworkRestricted -> Dhcp Client

Message is more or less like that (I've got a Spanish Windows version)

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

With Resource Manager:

Message is more or less like that (I've got a Spanish Windows version)

DHCP is Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol - its odd that Calibre should be waiting on such a thing, the DHCP Server normally does its job at boot up, and goes back to sleep until the next boot.

Can you tell us something of your environment

1. are you on a big corporate network, if so then you need to talk to the Corporate iT folks
2. are you using a mobile phone connection to get to the internet - do mobile phone connections even use a DHCP server, surely they get their IP addy from the phone company - I have no idea. I'm lucky if I can even make a voice call on my mobile.
3. are you at home with a single computer and an off the shelf commodity router with some sort of broadband connection to an ISP, then you should be using DHCP, which means you will need a local DHCP server, and that's typically something your router provides.

I'll assume its 3

Go to Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center

You should see a link under the Internet Globe to Local Area Network Click it and a dialogue box will appear showing traffic volumees (bytes sent & received) and a Button called Details - Click this button and you should see, something like this



If DHCP Enabled is No then - that's something that makes me go Hmmm

If DHCP Enabled is Yes then check out the TCP/IP configuration by following this MS link http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...CP-IP-settings

If DHCP is not enabled, could you explain why so.

If you have something odd in your TCP/IP configuration then I cant imagine why Calibre should be sensitive to it and not your browser, email client, ITunes and all the other stuff that calls home to look for updates etc etc, do you run a torrent client or FTP client - are they all OK ?

BR

[BetterRed]

Sorry forgot this, is the DHCP Service Started ?

Right Click My Computer, select Manage, click Services in Services & Applications

DHCP Client, should be Started, Automatic and Log On a Local Service

Also my prior post you'll see Lease Obtained and Lease Expired dates in the Network Connection Details window - what values do you have there ?

BR

[chaley]

0.8.67 was the first release that included netifaces, a C+Python library to interrogate the network interfaces on the computer to get the list of "up" IP addresses. If the problem is indeed related to networking, then it is possible that something on your machine is preventing netifaces from doing its job.

Things I can think of to check:

1) Do you have any virtual IP interfaces, such as those created by virtualbox or other VM software? If so, disable them.

2) Do you have a VPN installed? If so, is it on when you start calibre? If so, try starting calibre when it is not on.

3) Do you have more than one physical network connection that has a cable plugged in? If so, do all of the networks have DHCP servers running?

4) Same as 3, but wireless, including bluetooth PANs.

5) Are you running any security SW that might decide that interface scanning is evil? Hard to know what to do here other than to disable it all to see if anything changes.

6) Are you running on a machine where odd group security policies related to networking might be in force?
--

Some other random ideas:

- Network timeouts can be very long, sometimes measured in 5s of minutes. Have you let calibre sit there for a long time?

- If you have multiple network interfaces, then try turning off all of them except the one that connects to the internet.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by chaley

0.8.67 was the first release that included netifaces, a C+Python library to interrogate the network interfaces on the computer to get the list of "up" IP addresses. If the problem is indeed related to networking, then it is possible that something on your machine is preventing netifaces from doing its job.

Yes, it's related.

Originally Posted by chaley

Things I can think of to check:

1) Do you have any virtual IP interfaces, such as those created by virtualbox or other VM software? If so, disable them.

Not that I'm aware of.

Originally Posted by chaley

2) Do you have a VPN installed? If so, is it on when you start calibre? If so, try starting calibre when it is not on.

No.

Originally Posted by chaley

3) Do you have more than one physical network connection that has a cable plugged in? If so, do all of the networks have DHCP servers running?

No connection.

Originally Posted by chaley

4) Same as 3, but wireless, including bluetooth PANs.

Only one.

Originally Posted by chaley

5) Are you running any security SW that might decide that interface scanning is evil? Hard to know what to do here other than to disable it all to see if anything changes.

Avast and windows firewall, nothing else (that I'm aware of).

Originally Posted by chaley

6) Are you running on a machine where odd group security policies related to networking might be in force?

I hope not, it's my personal computer.
--

Originally Posted by chaley

Some other random ideas:

- Network timeouts can be very long, sometimes measured in 5s of minutes. Have you let calibre sit there for a long time?

You're right. After a quarter of an hour it has started with the following message:

calibre, version 0.9.2
ERROR: Excepción no considerada: <b>ValueError</b>:You must specify a valid interface name.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\ui.py", line 397, in start_smartdevice
  File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\actions\device.py", line 257, in set_smartdevice_action_state
  File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\dialogs\smartdevice.py", line 30, in get_all_ip_addresses
  File "site-packages\calibre\utils\mdns.py", line 19, in get_all_ips
ValueError: You must specify a valid interface name.

Originally Posted by chaley

- If you have multiple network interfaces, then try turning off all of them except the one that connects to the internet.

No luck.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

You're right. After a quarter of an hour it has started with the following message:

calibre, version 0.9.2
ERROR: Excepción no considerada: <b>ValueError</b>:You must specify a valid interface name.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\ui.py", line 397, in start_smartdevice
  File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\actions\device.py", line 257, in set_smartdevice_action_state
  File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\dialogs\smartdevice.py", line 30, in get_all_ip_addresses
  File "site-packages\calibre\utils\mdns.py", line 19, in get_all_ips
ValueError: You must specify a valid interface name.

This says that there is a network interface on your computer that is broken in some mysterious way. I have no idea what "way" that might be.

The code that is throwing the exception is:

[17]   if hasattr(netifaces, 'AF_INET'):
[18]        for x in netifaces.interfaces():
[19]            for c in netifaces.ifaddresses(x).get(netifaces.AF_INET, []):
[20]                all_ips[x].append(c)

Clearly the exception is being raised in netifaces, probably in the get() method. The message implies that an interface address (a windows thing describing real or virtual hardware) returned by iterating over the set returned by windows is not "valid". My guess is that it is an interface that should work, such as a point-to-point interface in the local domain (127). This is consistent with the report you gave earlier, saying that the problem was related to DHCP in the local domain.

At this point I have no real idea what you should do. I have very few suggestions.

1) Really be sure that there are no network interfaces defined on your computer that you don't need. Use both the control panel and the device manager to check what interfaces are defined.

2) Disable autostart of the wireless device driver and (probably) the content server. Of course, if this works it simply delays the problem.

3) Reinstall windows so that whatever bizarre network interface currently exists is no longer there. Yes, I know this is an enormous hammer for what is probably a small nail.

[Terisa de morgan]

I've checked and there's the same problem if firewall is deactivated, or adding rules for the port. DHCP is activated, but I can't get network properties (Com surrogate). I think it's related.

[theducks]

Temporarily rename/move elswhere (the configuration directory) tweaks.py
the try a start.

There is a tweak to set which interface calibre 'listens on'

[Terisa de morgan]

I've four network interfaces, one of them connected and three disconnected (two disabled). Thank you for your help but I think I'm going to leave this alone. I'll downgrade to 0.8.66 and that's all at this moment while I'm not able to "disable" this check.

[theducks]

open a command prompt:

ipconfig /all>foo.txt


Review the file for (mung as desired) sensitive info before posting