News downloads don't complete

[28tommie]

Thanks for the feedback - I have had mixed success over the past few days, so it appears as if the error does not happen consistently. It worded two days after my post, then gave errors for the next few days, and working perfectly again today - brilliant!
It may be at the BBC site - for example, the BBC Sport pages comes through very erratically, with a number of blank pages and the chapters which does not work (e.g. by forwarding to the next article it goes to a totally different page from that which is displayed in the "next article" at the bottom of the Kindle screen.
Thanks again gor a great program!

[atordo]

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread.

I also use Linux (Arch) and wasn't able to generate an ebook from newsfeeds till I discovered this thread. I don't think it's a matter of "who is to blame" (Xorg, Qt, python... software has so many layers these days), but if this affects a significant part of your userbase, don't you think it's worth to have a look at it, if only to contact some other developer who could fix it?

In the meantime I'll just use the hack of moving the file before running Calibre, as inelegant as it is.

Thank you for an awesome piece of software anyhow.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by atordo

I also use Linux (Arch) and wasn't able to generate an ebook from newsfeeds till I discovered this thread.

Glad you found a solution to your problem.

Originally Posted by atordo

I don't think it's a matter of "who is to blame" (Xorg, Qt, python... software has so many layers these days), but if this affects a significant part of your userbase, don't you think it's worth to have a look at it, if only to contact some other developer who could fix it?

If it affected a "significant part" of the user base maybe you would have a point, but the bottom line is it hardly affects anyone. Maybe you can discover what software or configuration you and the OP have in common that causes this problem. I may be wrong, but it is my understanding that the vast majority of all Linux installs using the the binary install method on calibre's Linux download page run without any hitch whatsoever.

[kovidgoyal]

Not to mention that linux users as a whole are not a significant part of the userbase But, that is neither here nor there. I have a blanket policy these days of not spending time on issues that do not match at least one of the following criteria:

*) Are in calibre code

*) Have a clear chain of causality or are reproducible on my systems

*) Affect a significant fraction of calibre users

*) Require little effort

*) Can lead to data loss

This issue matches none of these criteria.

When you're one guy doing bug triage for software used by millions of people, that is pretty much the only way to keep your sanity. But fortunately, linux and calibre are open source, so if this issue bothers you, roll up your sleeves and trace the root cause of the issue and submit a patch with whichever project is the root cause of it.

[atordo]

Thanks both for the quick reply. I understand time is limited and priorities must be set. I assumed (erroneously) that this issue affected all Linux users (and overestimated their weight in the Calibre userbase).

I must admit I don't use the binary download as Arch is quite fast updating so I prefer to wait a couple of days and use its package system.

I roll my sleeves up! But given that I'm not coder and just arrived to Calibre don't expect results real soon now. Not to mention the other projects involved.

In the mean time user affected by this could post here their configuration to see if we find a pattern. I'll start:

Distro: Archlinux
Xorg version:1.12.1
Desktop: xfce4 4.8
Packages that might be involved:
libice 1.0.8-1
pyqt 4.9.1-1
python 3.2.3-1
python2 2.7.3-1
python2-pyqt 4.9.1-1
qt 4.8.1-2
xorg-iceauth 1.0.5-1

(among a lot more of dependencies, but those seem enough for a starting point).

[kovidgoyal]

IIRC people experiencing this issue have all been using a "non-standard" window manager, i.e. neither KDE nor GNOME as their desktop environment.

[atordo]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

IIRC people experiencing this issue have all been using a "non-standard" window manager, i.e. neither KDE nor GNOME as their desktop environment.

Nice hint. When I move the ICE file and generation is successful, the following error is logged:

** (xfce4-session:838): WARNING **: ICE connection 0x9241358 rejected

Also, the package xorg-iceauth is required only by xfce4-session and xorg-server-utils.

I'll run some tests in a couple of machines I have access to, changing desktops and report back later.

[atordo]

I ran some tests with the following systems:

Computer 1
Distro: Arch
Calibre: 0.8.49 from distro package.

Computer 2
Distro: Xubuntu (Ubuntu with xfce4 as default DE)
Calibre: 0.8.49 from binary install

1st test: I log in C1 but chose icewm instead of xfce4 (it's a humble portable so I don't want to install a full DE like GNOME or KDE). Newsfeeds conversion works flawlessly.

2nd test: I log in C2 with its default xfce (4.8, same as C1). To my surprise conversion works flawlessly also (note that .ICEauthority file is present in all tests). I repeat the test several times with different feeds just to be sure. No error at all.

3rd test: I blame my distro packge, so I remove it from C1 and install the binary download. I log in with my default xfce and (surprise again) ebook generation fails with the error stated at the beginning of this thread.

I'm puzzled. The only conclusion I can draw is that something is not working correctly in the Arch package of xfce4, but there's many software involved to be 100% sure.

Anyway, this settles it for me. I'll just move the damn file (because its generated at every login) before running Calibre and live with it

[atordo]

I just wanted to add this: I only intervened in this thread because I thought this issue affected all Linux installs. Had I know it was so specific and difficult to pinpoint I wouldn't had resurrected the thread.

kovidgoyal is right, better concentrate in real development than in ghost hunting.

I want to thank dwanthny and kovidgoyal for taking their time in participating in the discussion.

[atordo]

Just a quick note to inform that with the upgrade of xfce from 4.8 to 4.10, the issue has vanished. So if you're experiencing this "ICE default IO error", you might want to check your desktop environment.