"The add books process seems to have hung"

[joleta]

I downloaded Calibre for Mac (I'm on Leopard 10.5) to convert PDFs to Epub for my iPad. I tried to add one 23.3 MB PDF. After a long time "Adding..." I eventually got the message "The add books process seems to have hung. Try restarting calibre and adding the books in smaller increments, until you find the problem book." I did restart calibre, but I don't know what a smaller increment is than one book. Many tries later I still get the same message. There's lots of help here and in the calibre docs, but it all assumes I've been able to add a book. I'm stuck at this basic step. Thanks for any help you can give me.

[kovidgoyal]

Go to preferences->plugins->metadata reader plugins and disable the pdf metadata reader plugin. Then try adding your PDF file

[joleta]

Thanks. That worked. Maybe something to add to the FAQs?

[glenn69]

I have the same problem with Calibre 0.7.8 on Linux. I have removed the plugin as suggested with the same results. Adding 0% message with no progress for at least 5 minutes. I am simply trying to add a pdf to the library, no conversion being attempted. I have tried several different simple, text only, pdf's with the same result.

I have also attempted to add HTML with the same results.

[kovidgoyal]

if you can't add any book formats then your installation is corrupted. if you're using a distro provided package, uninstall and install the binary from the calibre website.

[glenn69]

Thanks fro the response. That fixed it.

[nicknefarious]

Hi all, hoping for a little help.

I have for a while been trying to add a large library of books ~140GB of books. Every time I try I get through to 99% and then the next message I get is a list of the already existing books in the library that have been automerged. When I close this message I get an error message saying that the adding process has hung. Does this mean that nothing was added to the library? If something was added, exactly what was it? How can I see what was and wasn't added to the Calibre Library?

I'd really like some advice or direction on the best steps to take to add this many books to the library eg. What sort of batch size to do it in (obviously I'd prefer not to do it in batches of 20 books at a time) but I also don't want to get to 99% after three hours of it chewing through a large batch to get an error message and have none of them added. Because of this continuing error I often spend lots of time going back and adding books that are probably already in the library, but I am not sure and don't know exactly how to check if they are or not.

Is it better to use the Add books feature and select folders as I go or set up the auto add folder and do it that way. I'd really like to be able to select a folder and have it delete each book from the folder as it is added to the library that way assuming there is no bug within Calibre I can be sure of what has been added and what hasn't.

Secondly same goes for downloading book covers and metadata. What sort of batch sizes do you recommend or suggest?

Any other suggestions to ensure that everything that is added and edited is accurate and organised as it can/should be? I obviously don't want to lose or accidentally delete any of my books or incorrectly edit their metadata but with such a huge library I sure don't have the time to check each one myself other than to check as I go through them or maybe check small batches as and when I have the time.

All of the books are in one large folder broken into smaller folders some books are in their own individual folders some are not.

Any suggestions, advice and thoughts are all much appreciated.

Big cheers,

NN