[butitsmyname]

Hi guys

I have two PCs on a D-Link router, one windows XP (for my wife) and Ubuntu 10.10. They're linked via Samba for local file exchange and so I can print on my wife's laser printer over SMB.

On Windows caibre performs perfectly - specifically the news downloads which is the bit I want (I'm learning spanish).

I've run KDE for years as my preferred desktop (first Red hat, then Suse and now ubuntu) but after installing calibre from the repository I got constant Knotify errors (weirdly "Knotify has crashed"?) as well as a lack of news. Re-installed Kubuntu *to a clean, formatted disk*, added calibre and the errors came back but no news.

So I formatted the disk again and installed Gnome 10.10 clean and added calibre from the repository.

News fails and if I start it from a terminal I can see the connection timeout errors and a mass of traceback from Python. I get the same empty EPub or Mobi files with just error messages about failed connections in them.

I looked at the recipes and tried some that tackle Print pages, HTML pages and RSS feeds. I get the same result with all of them.

My browsers, email, torrent, etc all work perfectly - no networking problems. I have a clean, stable install where everything works except calibre.

When I came here first Kovid advised me to try the binary version. I wish I hadn't. I checked the dependencies, checked the python version and then followed the instructions. The installation crashed spectacularly - locked my desktop, couldn't even switch to a terminal - and now, even after doing my best to clean up manually - the binary version won't even try to install.

It's not as if I'm a newbie. I've been running Linux since kernel 2.0 was released, but after three days of rebuilds and failures calibre appears to have defeated me.

Interestingly, when I installed calibre I also got problems with other Python based apps - which disappeared when I uninstalled it.

I stopped programming before Python existed so I'm definitely not up to figuring out the problem but if anyone can think of where to go from here I'd be delighted to hear it.

Typical traceback follows - thanks

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/web/feeds/recipes/model.py", line 147, in get_builtin_recipe
return download_builtin_recipe(urn)
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/web/feeds/recipes/collection.py", line 97, in download_builtin_recipe
return br.open_novisit('http://status.calibre-ebook.com/recipe/'+urn).read()
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/mechanize/_mechanize.py", line 205, in open_novisit
return self._mech_open(url, data, visit=False, timeout=timeout)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/mechanize/_mechanize.py", line 236, in _mech_open
response = UserAgentBase.open(self, request, data)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/mechanize/_opener.py", line 191, in open
response = urlopen(self, req, data)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/urllib2.py", line 409, in _open
'_open', req)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/urllib2.py", line 369, in _call_chain
result = func(*args)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/mechanize/_http.py", line 729, in http_open
return self.do_open(httplib.HTTPConnection, req)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/mechanize/_http.py", line 706, in do_open
raise URLError(err)
URLError: <urlopen error [Errno 110] Connection timed out>
Fetch news from El Pais


Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/web/feeds/recipes/model.py", line 147, in get_builtin_recipe
return download_builtin_recipe(urn)
File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/web/feeds/recipes/collection.py", line 97, in download_builtin_recipe
return br.open_novisit('http://status.calibre-ebook.com/recipe/'+urn).read()
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/mechanize/_mechanize.py", line 205, in open_novisit
return self._mech_open(url, data, visit=False, timeout=timeout)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/mechanize/_mechanize.py", line 236, in _mech_open
response = UserAgentBase.open(self, request, data)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/mechanize/_opener.py", line 191, in open
response = urlopen(self, req, data)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/urllib2.py", line 409, in _open
'_open', req)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/urllib2.py", line 369, in _call_chain
result = func(*args)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/mechanize/_http.py", line 729, in http_open
return self.do_open(httplib.HTTPConnection, req)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/mechanize/_http.py", line 706, in do_open
raise URLError(err)
URLError: <urlopen error [Errno 110] Connection timed out>
^CException in thread Thread-4 (most likely raised during interpreter shutdown):