Calibre Companion - existing books

[Bilbo1967]

I finally got round to downloading Calibre Companion on to my Nexus 7 device. What I want it for mostly at first, is to act as a library organiser for my existing books (I have a lot of books that I have sideloaded onto my Nexus).

I'm sure I must be missing something really simple, but how do I get CC to see the books that are already on the device? I've tried setting the folder that the books exist in as the folder to download books to, but that seemed to make no difference.

I haven't yet connected to Calibre on my PC.

Thanks in advance!

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

I haven't yet connected to Calibre on my PC.

I think you should do this (Connect - as Wireless Device) and see if CC is able to auto-magically match the existing files' metadata with the equivalent books in your calibre library. If you have more than one calibre library, make sure you're currently using the relevant one when you try to connect.

[Bilbo1967]

Thanks jackie.

I'll try the connect tonight at home, but most of the books on my Nexus have never been anywhere near my PC. Downloaded directly onto the tablet - I just want Calibre Companion to act as a library organiser.

[jackie_w]

All my books originated in calibre so I'm afraid I don't really know how well/badly CC will deal with 'calibre-unknown' books.

Something I forgot to say earlier, I think you'll need to have CC settings 'Scan on connect' ticked before you connect. I can't remember whether the default is on or off.

[Bilbo1967]

I'll check that. Thanks for the tip.

[chaley]

What you want is not what CC is intended to do, but it might work for you if your books are epubs. The reason: CC gets book metadata from calibre. For non-epubs, if the books are not in calibre the metadata in CC will be garbage. For epubs, CC opens the book and extracts the metadata it finds, which may or may not be usable.

CC has no facility to edit metadata, instead depending on calibre for that function.

Your use case could be far enough away from what CC is intended to do that it won't be useful for you. If this is the case, ask for a refund by sending mail from the app's help screen.

Alternatively, add the books to calibre and fix the metadata. :-) In the long run you will probably be happier for having done this chore.

@jackie_w: scan defaults to on.

[Bilbo1967]

Chaley, thanks

I was trying to be a bit lazy I think and didn't really appreciate what CC actually did.

My books are epubs, but I think that doing it properly as you suggest will be a better option long term and so that's what I'll do when I get the time. Even if I don't get round to it, the ability to wirelessly connect my device with Calibre will be useful in the future and worth the money I paid.

Thanks again to you (and jackie_w) for the responses. I appreciate it.

[Bilbo1967]

Unfortunately, I cannot get Calibre and CC to connect, so I can't see any point in this app for me.

Oh well, the idea was good

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Unfortunately, I cannot get Calibre and CC to connect, so I can't see any point in this app for me.

Oh well, the idea was good

Have you gone through the steps in the FAQ Calibre Companion won’t connect to calibre. What do I do??

It is extremely rare that connections can not work. There are two major categories of problems:
1) (in almost all cases) The network security package (firewall, antivirus, other security stuff) on the computer running calibre blocks connections. In particular, the antivirus ESET has proven over and over to be a problem.
2) (much more rare) The wifi hub being used is running in "guest" mode, blocking all connections between wifi devices and cabled devices.

If you want to continue with this (and I can understand if you don't), and if the above FAQ doesn't help, then could you post the information asked for in the FAQ How do I get help??

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by chaley

Have you gone through the steps in the FAQ Calibre Companion won’t connect to calibre. What do I do??

Yes, I carried out all the steps up to and including sending an e-mail (no response). I'll try following the steps again though - it's always possible I made a mistake.

Originally Posted by chaley

It is extremely rare that connections can not work. There are two major categories of problems:
1) (in almost all cases) The network security package (firewall, antivirus, other security stuff) on the computer running calibre blocks connections. In particular, the antivirus ESET has proven over and over to be a problem.
2) (much more rare) The wifi hub being used is running in "guest" mode, blocking all connections between wifi devices and cabled devices.

If you want to continue with this (and I can understand if you don't), and if the above FAQ doesn't help, then could you post the information asked for in the FAQ How do I get help??

I'll try posting the info tonight when I'm back home if repeating the steps from the FAQ doesn't work.. I would like to get this working!

[chaley]

Just checking in: did it end up working, or have you given up?

[Bilbo1967]

I'm just finding it difficult to get the time to try it out again properly. I will get to it as soon as I can. As I said, I would like to get it working if I possibly can, so, watch this space!

Thanks for the chase!

[Bilbo1967]

OK, so made a little time and tried again. I followed very carefully all the steps in the FAQ and it still will not connect. As per the instructions there, please see the debug log from my last effort below.

Spoiler:

calibre Debug log
calibre 1.12 isfrozen: True is64bit: False
Windows-7-6.1.7601-SP1 Windows ('32bit', 'WindowsPE')
32bit process running on 64bit windows
('Windows', '7', '6.1.7601')
Python 2.7.5
Windows: ('7', '6.1.7601', 'SP1', 'Multiprocessor Free')
Starting up...
Started up in 6.58 seconds with 803 books
SMART_DEV ( 0.00: 0.004) _attach_to_port try ip address "" on port 9090
SMART_DEV ( 1.04: 0.850) startup_on_demand listening on port 9090
SMART_DEV ( 1.16: 0.043) _attach_to_port try ip address "" on port 54982
SMART_DEV ( 1.26: 0.000) startup_on_demand broadcast socket listening on port 54982
SMART_DEV ( 2.43: 1.062) run All IP addresses {'{846EE342-7039-11DE-9D20-806E6F6E6963}': [{'broadcast': '127.255.255.255', 'netmask': '255.0.0.0', 'addr': '127.0.0.1'}], '{1036A8EF-95C9-478D-A098-7D8AFE1ABC88}': [{'addr': '169.254.96.99'}], '{DE4F408B-CD19-4F79-9CAC-145B200A757F}': [{'broadcast': '192.168.2.255', 'netmask': '255.255.255.0', 'addr': '192.168.2.20'}]}
SMART_DEV ( 0.01: 0.015) _attach_to_port try ip address "" on port 9090
SMART_DEV ( 0.95: 0.811) startup_on_demand listening on port 9090
SMART_DEV ( 1.11: 0.031) _attach_to_port try ip address "" on port 54982
SMART_DEV ( 1.22: 0.000) startup_on_demand broadcast socket listening on port 54982
SMART_DEV ( 2.48: 1.170) run All IP addresses {'{846EE342-7039-11DE-9D20-806E6F6E6963}': [{'broadcast': '127.255.255.255', 'netmask': '255.0.0.0', 'addr': '127.0.0.1'}], '{1036A8EF-95C9-478D-A098-7D8AFE1ABC88}': [{'addr': '169.254.96.99'}], '{DE4F408B-CD19-4F79-9CAC-145B200A757F}': [{'broadcast': '192.168.2.255', 'netmask': '255.255.255.0', 'addr': '192.168.2.20'}]}

Android version is 4.4.2
Device IP address is 192.168.2.13
Calibre IP address is 192.168.2.20
Port is 9090

Any light anybody could shed on this would be greatly appreciated.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

OK, so made a little time and tried again. I followed very carefully all the steps in the FAQ and it still will not connect. As per the instructions there, please see the debug log from my last effort below.

...

Any light anybody could shed on this would be greatly appreciated.

First thing to note: calibre is reporting that the wireless device driver was started twice. Did you do that?

Now to the main event: the log shows that calibre received no communication from the device. Our experience is that in the vast majority of cases these problems are caused by firewall or anti-virus software on the machine running calibre. Do you have any security software installed? If so, what? In particular, do you have ESET or MalwareBytes (A/V and network security) or Trustor Rapport (security software that UK banks are pushing) installed? All three have been known to prevent CC from talking to calibre.

In rare cases the problem is caused by "Guest mode" on the wifi hub. If this "feature" is installed then wifi devices cannot see wired devices on the same network. What brand and model of wifi hub do you have?

Some things that you can do to help diagnose the problem:

1) Start calibre's content server (Connect/share, Start content server) on port 8080 (the default). Using chrome (the browser software) on your device, attempt to connect to calibre's content server using the URL http://192.168.2.20:8080/ (ip of machine running calibre). If that works, then we know that the problem is somewhere in CC or is a port-related firewall issue. My guess is that it won't work, in which case we are left with both security software and guest mode.

2) If you have another computer such as a laptop, try the same experiment as #1 from it. If it cannot connect then we know it isn't an android/cc problem. Assuming that the computer running calibre is connected to the home network using a cable, if you can, also connect this second computer to the home network by cable and run the test. If it succeeds then we know the problem is guest mode.

3) On the machine running calibre, open a command prompt (there is a shortcut in accessories) and run the command

ping 192.168.2.13

where the 192 ... is the IP address of your device. If you get something like

Reply from 192.168.2.13: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

then the problem cannot be guest mode, and almost certainly security SW on the computer running calibre is the problem. If you get something like

Reply from 192.168.2.20: Destination host unreachable.

then the problem is probably security SW but still might be guest mode.

4) Possibly more complicated: start the computer that runs calibre in "Safe Mode with Networking". This will disable all security software. Start calibre and see if CC can connect. If it can then we know for certain that something running on your computer is blocking CC's connections.

Enough for now...

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by chaley

First thing to note: calibre is reporting that the wireless device driver was started twice. Did you do that?

Yes, I tried it twice

Originally Posted by chaley

Now to the main event: the log shows that calibre received no communication from the device. Our experience is that in the vast majority of cases these problems are caused by firewall or anti-virus software on the machine running calibre. Do you have any security software installed? If so, what? In particular, do you have ESET or MalwareBytes (A/V and network security) or Trustor Rapport (security software that UK banks are pushing) installed? All three have been known to prevent CC from talking to calibre.

None of those, no. And I've checked all the firewall settings as mentioned in the FAQ.

Originally Posted by chaley

In rare cases the problem is caused by "Guest mode" on the wifi hub. If this "feature" is installed then wifi devices cannot see wired devices on the same network. What brand and model of wifi hub do you have?

Belkin 4365e8

Originally Posted by chaley

Some things that you can do to help diagnose the problem:

1) Start calibre's content server (Connect/share, Start content server) on port 8080 (the default). Using chrome (the browser software) on your device, attempt to connect to calibre's content server using the URL http://192.168.2.20:8080/ (ip of machine running calibre). If that works, then we know that the problem is somewhere in CC or is a port-related firewall issue. My guess is that it won't work, in which case we are left with both security software and guest mode.

Yep, didn't work.

Originally Posted by chaley

2) If you have another computer such as a laptop, try the same experiment as #1 from it. If it cannot connect then we know it isn't an android/cc problem. Assuming that the computer running calibre is connected to the home network using a cable, if you can, also connect this second computer to the home network by cable and run the test. If it succeeds then we know the problem is guest mode.

The computer running Calibre is a laptop and is not connected to my home network using a cable. Does it need to be?

Originally Posted by chaley

3) On the machine running calibre, open a command prompt (there is a shortcut in accessories) and run the command

ping 192.168.2.13

where the 192 ... is the IP address of your device. If you get something like

Reply from 192.168.2.13: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

then the problem cannot be guest mode, and almost certainly security SW on the computer running calibre is the problem. If you get something like

Reply from 192.168.2.20: Destination host unreachable.

then the problem is probably security SW but still might be guest mode.

The ping was successful.

Originally Posted by chaley

4) Possibly more complicated: start the computer that runs calibre in "Safe Mode with Networking". This will disable all security software. Start calibre and see if CC can connect. If it can then we know for certain that something running on your computer is blocking CC's connections.

I quite simply cannot get the laptop to start in Safe Mode with Networking!