Unable to convert ZIP to anything.

[tumbleworld]

I'm struggling with a really persistent error. I'm trying to convert files from zip to other formats on 7.38, so that I can read them on my Kindle &c. I can't get the program to convert from zip to anything, even plain text. The error output is always the same, and is copied below.

The zips are Calibre's own self-created files, produced when I added pretty basic -- and DRM-free -- .html originals to the library. I'm reluctant to just abandon the program for a variety of reasons, but not least that I've spent a fair chunk of time setting up the Metadata for each file.

I'm running Windows 7, and have tried every assorted permissions kludge I can think of, so I guess it's probably not insufficient authority. I've tinkered with every possible setting that seems as if it might be relevant, including every suggestion I've been able to dig out of the forums, such as pre-formatting the input stream. I've tried uninstalling, downloading a clean version of 7.38, and re-installing, but that's not worked. When I told it to give me error output, the only thing it generated was the readme text, so I assume it's not even beginning to start the conversion.

As an aside, I had an odd glitch with the 7.38 install. During installation, it insisted it needs to remove 6.37 -- which I didn't have an installer file for. My last installed version was 7.20. So after trying an install and just cancelling that, I downloaded an old 6.37 installer alongside it, which shut it up. Didn't help the program convert the files, though.

If anyone has any idea where I'm going wrong, I'd really appreciate some hints. I love Calibre, but this is driving me stone-cold crazy. Can anyone help at all?

Thanks either way.
~T.

Convert book 1 of 1 (Entry1)
Processing archive...
Resolved conversion options
calibre version: 0.7.38
{'asciiize': False,
'author_sort': None,
'authors': None,
'base_font_size': 0.0,
'book_producer': None,
'breadth_first': False,
'change_justification': u'original',
'chapter': u"//*[((name()='h1' or name()='h2') and re:test(., 'chapter|book|section|part|prologue|epilogue\\s+', 'i')) or @class = 'chapter']",
'chapter_mark': u'pagebreak',
'comments': None,
'cover': 'c:\\users\\tim\\appdata\\local\\temp\\calibre_0.7 .38_tmp_v6bnwq\\calibre_0.7.38_ojimrh.jpeg',
'debug_pipeline': u'C:\\Temp\\Unpack',
'disable_font_rescaling': False,
'dont_package': False,
'dont_split_on_page_breaks': False,
'epub_flatten': False,
'extra_css': None,
'extract_to': None,
'flow_size': 260,
'font_size_mapping': None,
'footer_regex': u'(?i)(?<=<hr>)((\\s*<a name=\\d+></a>((<img.+?>)*<br>\\s*)?\\d+<br>\\s*.*?\\s*)|(\\s* <a name=\\d+></a>((<img.+?>)*<br>\\s*)?.*?<br>\\s*\\d+))(?=<br>)' ,
'header_regex': u'(?i)(?<=<hr>)((\\s*<a name=\\d+></a>((<img.+?>)*<br>\\s*)?\\d+<br>\\s*.*?\\s*)|(\\s* <a name=\\d+></a>((<img.+?>)*<br>\\s*)?.*?<br>\\s*\\d+))(?=<br>)' ,
'html_unwrap_factor': 0.4,
'input_encoding': '',
'input_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.InputProfile object at 0x04A39EF0>,
'insert_blank_line': False,
'insert_metadata': False,
'isbn': None,
'keep_ligatures': False,
'language': None,
'level1_toc': None,
'level2_toc': None,
'level3_toc': None,
'line_height': 0.0,
'linearize_tables': False,
'margin_bottom': 5.0,
'margin_left': 5.0,
'margin_right': 5.0,
'margin_top': 5.0,
'max_levels': 5,
'max_toc_links': 50,
'minimum_line_height': 120.0,
'no_chapters_in_toc': False,
'no_default_epub_cover': False,
'no_inline_navbars': False,
'no_svg_cover': False,
'output_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.KindleOutput object at 0x04A661F0>,
'page_breaks_before': u"//*[name()='h1' or name()='h2']",
'prefer_metadata_cover': False,
'preprocess_html': True,
'preserve_cover_aspect_ratio': False,
'pretty_print': True,
'pubdate': None,
'publisher': None,
'rating': None,
'read_metadata_from_opf': 'c:\\users\\tim\\appdata\\local\\temp\\calibre_0.7 .38_tmp_v6bnwq\\calibre_0.7.38_6hr8mo.opf',
'remove_first_image': False,
'remove_footer': False,
'remove_header': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing_indent_size': 1.5,
'series': None,
'series_index': None,
'smarten_punctuation': False,
'tags': None,
'timestamp': None,
'title': None,
'title_sort': None,
'toc_filter': None,
'toc_threshold': 6,
'use_auto_toc': False,
'verbose': 2}
InputFormatPlugin: HTML Input running
on c:\users\tim\appdata\local\temp\calibre_0.7.38_tmp _v6bnwq\calibre_0.7.38_phsh3c_plumber\content.opf
Parsing all content...
Python function terminated unexpectedly
unknown encoding: (Error Code: 1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site.py", line 103, in main
File "site.py", line 85, in run_entry_point
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\ipc\worker.py", line 107, in main
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\convert\gui_conversion.py", line 24, in gui_convert
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plumber.py", line 853, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\customize\conversion.py", line 216, in __call__
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\html\input.py", line 300, in convert
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plumber.py", line 990, in create_oebbook
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\reader.py", line 71, in __call__
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\reader.py", line 104, in _read_opf
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\base.py", line 1897, in decode
LookupError: unknown encoding:

[theducks]

Originally Posted by tumbleworld

If anyone has any idea where I'm going wrong, I'd really appreciate some hints. I love Calibre, but this is driving me stone-cold crazy. Can anyone help at all?

Thanks either way.
~T.

There was a bug that early downloaders found the hard way.
Uninstall Calibre (your library is OK), discard the prior 7.38 download. Fetch a fresh copy.
It WORKS

[tumbleworld]

That's fixed it -- thank you so much!

It seems the key was to download the installer from the front page, rather than downloading it from Sourceforge or a mirror. I tried both of those late last night after seeing similar advice to someone else, because the front page was giving glacial download speeds. I should have been more patient, clearly!

Thanks again