Have to reboot PC?

[NSILMike]

A strange problem, started a few weeks back, and is surviving at least two Calibre updates.
My PC runs windows 7 Ultimate. I use Calibre to download various news sites, and then Calibre Companion to sync them to my Nexus 7 (Android) tablet.
Perhaps 2 out of 3 or 4 days, Calibre downloads but can't save the news sources. All show up in Calibre as 0 byte files. So, I delete them, and restart Calibre and so far, it can successfully download them on the second try. But...whenever this happens, Calibre Companion cannot sync to Calibre on the PC. Calibre is absolutely started on the PC but Companion thinks it is not... to fix this, I have to reboot the PC.
Anybody have a clue about this....?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by NSILMike

A strange problem, started a few weeks back, and is surviving at least two Calibre updates.
My PC runs windows 7 Ultimate. I use Calibre to download various news sites, and then Calibre Companion to sync them to my Nexus 7 (Android) tablet.
Perhaps 2 out of 3 or 4 days, Calibre downloads but can't save the news sources. All show up in Calibre as 0 byte files. So, I delete them, and restart Calibre and so far, it can successfully download them on the second try. But...whenever this happens, Calibre Companion cannot sync to Calibre on the PC. Calibre is absolutely started on the PC but Companion thinks it is not... to fix this, I have to reboot the PC.
Anybody have a clue about this....?

My first guess is your (WiFi) network is going to sleep and not waking up properly (re-establish the connection).

My second guess is

[NSILMike]

Originally Posted by theducks

My first guess is your (WiFi) network is going to sleep and not waking up properly (re-establish the connection).

My second guess is

No, it's not the wifi going to sleep... there is no sleep mode on wifi routers as you probably know... Plus the PC is hard wired to the router and not dependent on wifi. I start calibre, and initiate the downloads so everything is awake just fine.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by NSILMike

No, it's not the wifi going to sleep... there is no sleep mode on wifi routers as you probably know... Plus the PC is hard wired to the router and not dependent on wifi. I start calibre, and initiate the downloads so everything is awake just fine.

You are correct that Routers don't sleep,

BUT I know Intel and Realtek Lan ports (on PC) can.
Device Manager:Network adapter: Properties: (power tab)

[chaley]

Not wanting to be alarmist, but you might want to do a complete scan for malware. It sounds like something is interfering with access to the file system and networking. Do the scan with a different AV than you are currently using.

Also, be sure that your calibre library is on a local disc, not on the LAN somewhere.

[NSILMike]

Originally Posted by chaley

Not wanting to be alarmist, but you might want to do a complete scan for malware. It sounds like something is interfering with access to the file system and networking. Do the scan with a different AV than you are currently using.

Also, be sure that your calibre library is on a local disc, not on the LAN somewhere.

No, there's no malware. I'm exceedingly paranoid about that... Avast is my real-time anti-virus, plus I run Malwarebytes, usually about twice a week.
Plus this is the only suspicious behavior I've seen. I suspect there is some minor corruption somewhere in a dll or ?

28 March Update: it's cured. Don't know how, but one of the Calibre updates or perhaps a windows update has eliminated this problem... wish I knew how though!

[NSILMike]

Originally Posted by theducks

You are correct that Routers don't sleep,

BUT I know Intel and Realtek Lan ports (on PC) can.
Device Manager:Network adapter: Properties: (power tab)

It can happen (and has) when I'm sitting in front of the PC with a browser open, etc., etc. There is some glitch somewhere that is causing this, of course, but it's not sleeping ethernet adapters... thanks for the idea though.

[NSILMike]

Originally Posted by NSILMike

No, there's no malware. I'm exceedingly paranoid about that... Avast is my real-time anti-virus, plus I run Malwarebytes, usually about twice a week.
Plus this is the only suspicious behavior I've seen. I suspect there is some minor corruption somewhere in a dll or ?

28 March Update: it's cured. Don't know how, but one of the Calibre updates or perhaps a windows update has eliminated this problem... wish I knew how though!

It's back again. The only thing I can relate it to is that when I (rarely) use IE 11, it happens. And, only a reboot cures it. Some IE 11 service is interfering with Calibre...?

[NSILMike]

Originally Posted by NSILMike

It's back again. The only thing I can relate it to is that when I (rarely) use IE 11, it happens. And, only a reboot cures it. Some IE 11 service is interfering with Calibre...?

Anybody else see this? It is still happening, and is definitely somehow related to IE11. I use IE a couple times a week for a specific purpose (MSN Games) and this CC problem occurs only on those same days!

[JSWolf]

It's not IE11 causing your problem. I have IE11 installed. and Calibre works no problem. Granted, I hardly use IE11.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by NSILMike

Anybody else see this? It is still happening, and is definitely somehow related to IE11. I use IE a couple times a week for a specific purpose (MSN Games) and this CC problem occurs only on those same days!

I also use IE11 from time to time and it does not cause any problems.

Do these games have a local component? If so then perhaps it is doing something with uPNP, which is perfectly capable of repurposing network ports and causing all sorts of havoc. This is particularly true if they have some kind of local network multiplayer facility.

Have both problems recurred (calibre fetching news and CC failing to connect)? If so, then it is almost certain that whatever it is is blocking calibre's access to your local net.

Have you tried some experiments such as fetching news & connecting CC, starting IE11, stopping IE11, then fetching news etc? That will tell you if it is IE 11 by itself. They try the same thing but adding playing your game(s).

[theducks]

A nice MS (Sysinternals) tool is TCPView for watching port connection activity.
TCPV is not a 'sniffer'

[NSILMike]

Originally Posted by chaley

I also use IE11 from time to time and it does not cause any problems.

Do these games have a local component? If so then perhaps it is doing something with uPNP, which is perfectly capable of repurposing network ports and causing all sorts of havoc. This is particularly true if they have some kind of local network multiplayer facility.

Have both problems recurred (calibre fetching news and CC failing to connect)? If so, then it is almost certain that whatever it is is blocking calibre's access to your local net.

Have you tried some experiments such as fetching news & connecting CC, starting IE11, stopping IE11, then fetching news etc? That will tell you if it is IE 11 by itself. They try the same thing but adding playing your game(s).

I think I have figured it out, although probably not well enough to create a solution. I can make it happen by using windows task manager to kill the IE11 process. Unfortunately, in multi-player games that is the only way get out of a game without damaging your rating. (You would not believe the number of people who go into these games merely to sabotage them, etc.) There must be some shared process that I'm killing at the same time. I will either live with it, or more likely, drop MSN games...