Unable to open epub book after editing with Sigil

[danshand84]

Hello,

I am new to this forum. I came to the Sigil forum to ask for help because I am all of a sudden unable to open my epub book. This happened to me another time with another book.

I am using Sigil to add highlighting and comments to epub books. Since this is not available natively in epub format (that I am aware of) I open the book in Sigil, and edit the HTML directly, adding inline CSS for highlighting/bolding/underlining and more html for comments. This way my notes and highlights are part of the ebook. I also use Moon+ Reader on my android phone, but prefer to make my highlights and notes directly in the book because any annotations/highlights done in Moon+ Reader are only available in Moon+ Reader. I even asked for help from the Moon+ Reader developer who was kind enough to make changes to Moon so that my changes done in Sigil would be more visible in Moon Reader.

However after editing in Sigil, now my epub book can not be opened in either Sigil or in the Firefox epub reader. I found this recent post in this forum indicating that sometimes Sigil trashes files:

Sigil has trashed more files (Multi-page thread 1 2 3)
JimmyG (04-22-2013)

I also noticed in above mentioned post that Tidy might be related. I did allow Sigil to fix html errors itself because sometimes when it complained I couldn't find the error.

Is this what is happening to me? Files within the epub book are getting damaged due to allowing Sigil to fix the errors... or maybe for some other reason? If so, what can I use to open the epub file to check the individual files...I know which html files I was editing. I don't really understand how epub works regarding file stucture. I know there are html, css, and other files within an epub file, but I don't know how they are all put together into an epub file. Is it something like a .zip file, or something else?

Thanks for your help.

Dan

[danshand84]

Now I see I can open epub books using 7-Zip File Manager, however, when I try that with this book I get the error: Cannot open <%Name of file%> as archieve.

Any suggestions about how to fix this are welcome.

Thanks
Dan

[Tex2002ans]

It sounds as if the EPUB itself is corrupted.

7-zip should be able to open it fine (EPUBs are just .zip files packaged in a very specific way).

Hopefully you have saved backup copies of this EPUB.

If not, you should really get into the practice of saving often. And saving multiple "versions" of files before doing any major changes. I personally "Save As" and append [v.1] [v.2] [v.3] whenever I do a complete round of checks to my EPUB (I just spellchecked the entire EPUB = bump version, I just added in new images = bump version, I just fixed all the indentation = bump version, ...).

Therefore, if anything goes wrong, I do not lose too much progress.

[theducks]

Your description is that of a damaged EPUB (container)

Sigil (tidy) does not damage the container... It will always 'open'

Tidy may damage the contents of a poorly formed file within.

My definition of damage is not the same as some others here.

My definition is the words (text and images) no longer display (or display wrong) for a segment

Other define it as: 'You changed 1 byte of my code' (the document appears on devices correctly)

[danshand84]

Thank you both for your helpful comments. I investigated a bit further and found out that this epub file is empty! It has a size of 0 KB. I tried changing the extension to .zip and trying to extract in Windows and Windows told me it was empty.

I have other files with similar problems but they are not empty. However Zip 7, Winzip, Windows, and Sigil cannot open them - seriously I get errors when trying to open.

Finally when trying to open 1 of these files, Sigil itself started being unable to work. I got this error from Sigil:

Error info: Critical: QWindowsBackingStore::flush: BitBlt failed (The handle is invalid.)
Sigil version: 0.7.2
Runtime Qt: 5.0.2
Compiled Qt: 5.0.2
Platform: Windows SysInfo ID 144

It also tried to force me to report it, but this bug tracking on the Sigil site is apparently closed, so I had to force shut Sigil. Then guess what? Although Sigil does not show in Applications in Task Manager (Windows 7), I had 2 Sigils running in processes and they were hogging up all my CPU. So finally I had to restart to get out of this mess!

Anyway I now understand your advise to Save Before Sigil-ing!, however epub is really turning into too much of a hassle for me - unless I just use it on my phone. I don't understand why the group of companies that created or runs epub format haven't come up with a native way to allow users to highlight and annotate their epub books! This is all I want to do.

For my purposes Kindle is the best. But it is a little confining. I would prefer to be able to notate a book however I want - like a real book - but you have to compromise in life and ebooks have huge advantages over real books. Plus unfortunately not all books are available as Kindle versions. PDF is not really that bad since Adobe allowed highlighting and annotations in Reader, plus the android version of Reader works pretty well. Maybe I can get away with just these 2, but do any of you have any suggestions for other formats that would be more conducive to highlighting and annotations?

Thanks
Dan

[theducks]

Originally Posted by danshand84

Thank you both for your helpful comments. I investigated a bit further and found out that this epub file is empty! It has a size of 0 KB. I tried changing the extension to .zip and trying to extract in Windows and Windows told me it was empty.

I have other files with similar problems but they are not empty. However Zip 7, Winzip, Windows, and Sigil cannot open them - seriously I get errors when trying to open.

Finally when trying to open 1 of these files, Sigil itself started being unable to work. I got this error from Sigil:

Error info: Critical: QWindowsBackingStore::flush: BitBlt failed (The handle is invalid.)
Sigil version: 0.7.2
Runtime Qt: 5.0.2
Compiled Qt: 5.0.2
Platform: Windows SysInfo ID 144

It also tried to force me to report it, but this bug tracking on the Sigil site is apparently closed, so I had to force shut Sigil. Then guess what? Although Sigil does not show in Applications in Task Manager (Windows 7), I had 2 Sigils running in processes and they were hogging up all my CPU. So finally I had to restart to get out of this mess!

Anyway I now understand your advise to Save Before Sigil-ing!, however epub is really turning into too much of a hassle for me - unless I just use it on my phone. I don't understand why the group of companies that created or runs epub format haven't come up with a native way to allow users to highlight and annotate their epub books! This is all I want to do.

For my purposes Kindle is the best. But it is a little confining. I would prefer to be able to notate a book however I want - like a real book - but you have to compromise in life and ebooks have huge advantages over real books. Plus unfortunately not all books are available as Kindle versions. PDF is not really that bad since Adobe allowed highlighting and annotations in Reader, plus the android version of Reader works pretty well. Maybe I can get away with just these 2, but do any of you have any suggestions for other formats that would be more conducive to highlighting and annotations?

Thanks
Dan

Sigil 7.4 is current (7.3 is good except for new MAC OS)

That said, something is odd about YOUR system behavior. Are you running some sort of Cloud backup? Agresive Antivirus setting?

The only Guaranteed crash generator I know (XP, W7) is 'Generate HTML TOC' and that NEVER happens on a fresh open of Sigil. There is some precursor step that triggers the crashing condition.

[danshand84]

I'm only connected to DropBox. For firewall I'm running Microsoft windows essentials, and using Windows firewall. I'm running Windows 7 64 bit and just upgraded it, but nothing else is acting weird so far.

I don't remember Sigil running crazy like the before, but I see from your comment I am running an older version.

[mrmikel]

I'd suggest in this sort of case you start Sigil immediately after you cold boot your computer, in case some other software is doing something interesting. Unplug your network cable (or turn off your wi-fi) and turn off your antivirus.

Epubs in other computers are not any trouble at all, at least for what you are doing. This is what all the talk in the forums of valid epub, something the developers have spent a gigantic amount of time on.

Others may complain that their epubs have been modified from what they put in, but they ARE valid.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by danshand84

I'm only connected to DropBox. For firewall I'm running Microsoft windows essentials, and using Windows firewall. I'm running Windows 7 64 bit and just upgraded it, but nothing else is acting weird so far.

I don't remember Sigil running crazy like the before, but I see from your comment I am running an older version.

There's something really not right here. I run Sigil (several versions) and I run win7 64-b8it, w/o any issues. I have thousands of ePUB files on my computer, without any issues remotely akin to this. On the other hand, I don't try to make the fundamental ePUB file act like an annotated file in a reader, by using tons of inline CSS.

I suspect what may have happened here--at some point--is that you tried to use inline CSS to annotate something, and Tidy ate it. From the point of the error forward, it's entirely possible that the file would have been corrupted. (The NEW file, not the file you had previously, of course). If you erroneously told it to either, "clean the file automatically" or saved it with those changes, you could have big issues. If/when I get that prompt, I close the file w/o saving, so as not to save whatever I bollixed up, because, don't misunderstand, when this happens, 99% of the time, it's "operator error." In other words, your HTML is bollixed, and it crashes the file.

If you have your files synched to dropbox, simply go to the dropbox website and pickup the previous version of the file. Heavens knows, I've done this often enough. You may also wish to get in the habit of opening a file in Sigil, do a "save as" or "save a copy" and use a working version of the file for your changes. It's how I do it, much to the endless annoyance of my crews*. But it's saved me more than once from my own inept typing.

*My bookmakers, designers, etc., all have dropboxes for their work that are shared with me. Actually, I have the main "dropbox" and all their dropboxes are in directories inside of mine, as it were. When I'm tweaking any of their files, they "see" me as I'm changing things around in their dropboxes, moving things, etc. Naturally, when you see someone playing around in your knickers, it's a bit odd. But, as I said, it's been quite useful to always work in a working copy of the file, not the "source," to play with words a bit. ;-)

You should be able to salvage the older, uncorrupted file from your Dropbox storate, I should think. Would you let us know? We really do all feel your pain, if you lost a file completely.

You may wish to look at Azardi, or one of those. They may have more advanced note-taking features, for your ePUBs. I don't know that factually, but I've seen some HTML5/ePUB3/CSS3 stuff with those readers that looks fairly cool for personal use.

Hitch