calibre won't start after editing tweak

[markcrew]

I've been using calibre on Windows for a few years to manage a 500+ book library for my Kindle. Today I was editing the tweak to change the initial sort order displayed and I apparently specified an invalid sort key name (series_sort). It saved my change with no error, but when I restarted calibre it died. It displays the splash screen and then shuts down. I'm running version 3.35. I ran a calibre-debug -g and the output is in the attached file.

How do I fix this? The traceback looks like it's failing with a key error in a function called sort_key_func. I can't fix the sort key because I can't get calibre to run so I can edit the tweak. Is there another way to edit it or to reset it?

[BetterRed]

Try this

• Open the config folder: click the Preferences->Miscellaneous->Open... button.
• Close calibre
• copy the file tweaks.py to tweaks_save.py, in case you make things worser
• open the tweaks.py file in a text editor (my choices would be Notepad++ for Windows, TextWrangler for MacOS, Emacs for Linux)
• look for sort_columns_at_startup = set it to None
• save tweaks .py
• start calibre
• should be OK
• don't forget to delete tweaks_save.py

BR

[markcrew]

I couldn't open the config folder the way you suggested because I couldn't start calibre, but I was able to do a file search and found the tweaks.py file (in \AppData\Roaming\calibre\). I edited it as you suggested and calibre is now running again - THANKS!!!

At one point in my struggles last night I removed & reinstalled calibre and it didn't fix my problem, so apparently the Remove option in the installation msi removes the application but doesn't clean out the calibre stuff from the AppData areas. I'm guessing that's intentional to save a user's settings, customizations, etc so they're not starting over from scratch if they re-install. For files like this tweaks file that can crash the app if they're corrupted, it might be better to rename & replace them with the standard files on either the removal or re-installation of the app.

Thanks again for the help!

Mark

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by markcrew

I couldn't open the config folder the way you suggested because I couldn't start calibre,

Oops, sorry about that

Originally Posted by markcrew

. . .

For files like this tweaks file that can crash the app if they're corrupted, it might be better to rename & replace them with the standard files on either the removal or re-installation of the app.

Yours is the first instance I can recall of a mistake in a tweak crashing calibre. I suggest you report it as bug, attaching the debug text and referencing this thread.

This is the bug tracking site ==>> Bugs : calibre

BR

[kovidgoyal]

its already fixed.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

its already fixed.