Hmm so it looks like Linux Mint might be defaulting tmp to ram on newer installs. Figure this is worth a mention since it might pop up again with other Mint users. I'm unsure if it does it by default all the time or if you have over a certain ram threshold, I have 32gb for example so I'm not too worried about using my ram since I don't come close to utilizing it on this machine. Thanks for the tip on the env variable. I'll look into setting that up.
Rebooting obviously resolves this issue. Hilariously I forgot the ever important "Have you turned it off and on again" when troubleshooting this.
Also thanks for all your hard work with Calibre. I realized the other day I've used Calibre on and off for almost as long as it has existed. Shocked when I went to go look up the original release date because someone asked me how long I had been using it, and without thinking responded with "about a couple of decades"
Which I thought that couldn't be right, but when I went back it looked like I started using Calibre around 2007/08 which is 15+ years!