BIG PROBLEM witrh conversions

[cybmole]

i am at a complete loss

suddenly I am converting books which previously converted OK and am seeing output like this:
Butsheneverdoubteditwaslessthanthetruth.Marawouldn ’tlie.Inhermind’seye,shecouldseeit.Thelush,texture divorywallpaper,thegoldtrim,therich,plushburgundyo fthecarpet.Theluxuriouscolorsmadeaperfectbackdropf orJenise’sdarkbeauty,hercoffee-coloredskin,herthickcurlsthatsheworehangingloosedo wnherback.AndBrian—hergutclenchedasshepicturedthem together.Notjustinthehotelhallway,whereMarahadseen them.Butinthebedbeyondthatdoor.Brian’schestnuthair —thickandwavy—

it started when I as trying to reproduce a small bug in conversion from lit but seems to be spreading. I am testing now testing various books and formats, some are OK but once a book has gone "bad" no amout of retries will fix it.

I have already tried:
shut down _+ restart calibre (7.49)
shut down + restart PC
run library integrity checks - no issues found.
remove all extra CSS
turn off heuristics
set calibre viewer to show all formats so that I can directly compare source & output in same viewer.

I am about to switch off - go to bed & hope someone has an answer when I log back on in the morning

other clues: the conversion is too quick - just 1-2 seconds. the output file size looks too small - about 50% of the source files size.
i'll pick a book where I have good lit, good epub and redo the convert. the epub was 260k & looked OK - after clciking restore defaults & re-runnign convert it has shrunk to 68k & looks like
PROLOGUE
SomewhereinthenearfutureExperimentalBreedLabs,Mexi coJacobexitedthesmallshowerattachedtohiscell,atowe lwrappedaroundhiswaistashedriedthelongstrandsofhis hairwithanother.Thehotshowerhadeasedthestrainedmus clesthatcamewithdailytraining,butdidlittletoeaseth etensepremonitionthathadfilledhimforthelastdays.It throbbedinhisgut,andtightenedhischest.


OK - so Ive gone to my main preferences screen with no conversions running - clicked through and applied restore defaults to every relevent page - then redid the above test & it came out OK - phew. repeat with another book - still OK.

time to quit while I am winning - BUT could I possibly have done within my main preferences that was having such a drastic effect ? is there a bug in 7.49 that I managed to trigger ?

[user_none]

It looks like you have something removing all spaces. Possibly a search an replace that replaces spaces with nothing?

[cybmole]

here's my explanation -

I added some invalid extra css to my default conversion preferences - mismatched brackets.
as soon as I let that code lose on a conversion it corrupted settings elsewhere in calibre, I guess there's no validataion / protection surrounding extra css. So even after going to that default preferences screen and removing ALL extra CSS, the corruption was still present, and remained so after shut down+restart.

The cure of forcing every individual conversion screen back to default repaired the damage,even there was no VISIBLE damage on any other screen.
the reason that some conversions still worked was that those ones were re-using stored conversion preferences

i made two typo errors in extra css - like so
{mistake1}}
{mistake2]

somehow they corrupted a close by area like the search /replace values , in such a way that the corruption did not show up in the S&R window ???

someone who know how calibre is coded can maybe hypothesize what damage the mismatched brackets can do, without recreating a destructive test.

it was just con-incidence that the problem showed when I was fooling with lit conversions - I add "bright ideas" to my default extra CSS ( well not any more but I did! ) as I find them, without immediately testing. so I'd added a couple of things earlier in the day & introduced the 2 errors. but they lay dormant until I actually used my new defaults.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by user_none

It looks like you have something removing all spaces. Possibly a search an replace that replaces spaces with nothing?

y'know it could be that simple

if the search box were to contain a single space, & the replace box was blank. that could account for all the damage - and would be "invisible" in a visual inspection of the conversion screens.
but I'm pretty sure I would NOT have typed anything into S&R via preferences - default conversions as it would be pretty daft to add stuff there & have it applying to all books.

If I inspect the saved list of recent search values there is a single space in the dropdown list. that could happen if I wipe an entry by swiping the mouse across it to highlight it & then hit back button, but fail to highlight a single space.