Feature request during conversion

[Cool Javelin]

Hello all, I am new to this forum, this is my first post here.

I have been using Calibre 0.8.62 for some months now, and think it is great.

However, when converting a bunch of books from PDF to MOBI, the pdf to html converter crashes from time to time.

I understand new programs have issues and I can deal with the crashing, I assume the designers will fix it some day.

But, the entire queue halts and waits for me to click OK on a popup message telling me it crashed.

It would be better if the queue scheduler could continue to convert other books while the error message was displayed.

I had 200 books to convert, started it and went to bed, and the next morning I found it had crashed and after dismissing the error message found I still had 192 books to go (so much for letting the computer work for me while I sleep, I have to babysit it.)

Just my 2 cents for today,

Keep up the good work, you guys rock.

Mark.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Cool Javelin

Hello all, I am new to this forum, this is my first post here.

Welcome to Mobileread.

Originally Posted by Cool Javelin

However, when converting a bunch of books from PDF to MOBI, the pdf to html converter crashes from time to time.

You are a brave soul. Using PDF as a source is challenging to say the least. Although not related to your current problem I would suggest that at some point you may want to read the Sticky post at the top of this forum titled "Read this before Posting PDF Questions."

Originally Posted by Cool Javelin

I understand new programs have issues and I can deal with the crashing, I assume the designers will fix it some day.

Calibre is not a new program and since most of the crash problems that occur with PDFs are related to the library calibre uses, most likely it won't get fixed any time soon. Of course nothing can get fixed if details of the crash aren't reported. If you tell us what the pop-up error states or include the details from the crashed book we might be able to be of more help. To find the details you can click on jobs in the lower right corner of calibre and then click show details for the job that crashed. I found two bug reports similar to what you describe here and here.

Originally Posted by Cool Javelin

But, the entire queue halts and waits for me to click OK on a popup message telling me it crashed.

After you click OK do the jobs continue? Most books that error out during conversion do not prevent other conversion jobs in the queue from processing.

Originally Posted by Cool Javelin

It would be better if the queue scheduler could continue to convert other books while the error message was displayed.

If simply pressing OK gets the other jobs going again then this sounds like a good idea.

FYI, To submit an actual feature request follow the directions on this page.

[kovidgoyal]

There is no way to keep jobs going after a crash, because windows, in its infinite wisdom decides to freeze the process in place while displaying the crash notification. For non-crash errors (or for crashes on non windows platforms), the queue manager will continue converting.

[Cool Javelin]

Hi, and thanks for the replys,

I sidestepped the issue, here is a workaround.

I have a program called "WinBatch" from WindowWare (old copy)

I simply wrote a small batch file that looks for the windows and closes them, thus:

WinError = "pdftohtml.exe"
calError = "Conversion Error"

:checkloop
if WinExist(WinError) then sendkeysto(WinError,"D")
if WinExist(calError) then sendkeysto(calError,"~")
delay(3)
goto checkloop

dwanthny:
One of the popups is from Windows saying...

pdftohtml crashed and needs to close...

and as kovidgoyal reports, yes, the program halts till I get rid of that Windows popup.

The second popup reads "Conversion Error" "Failed: convert book nn of xx (title of book)"

It looks like the conversion halts during this message too.

kovidgoyal:

Thanks, I do have an Ubuntu system, maybe I will try to install Calibre there to test.

Mark.