Some book files get destroyed after I open them or edit metadata

[wladdy]

Hello,

I use Calibre 2.3 on a 13" mid-2011 MacBook Air (1,7GHZ Intel Core i5, 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3) running OS X 10.9.5.

I have a major problem with my library (about 8000 books):
when I import a book, open it or change its metadata, the book becomes unreadable. Looking in the path, the files are still there, properly named, with the right extension. They also have the expected size. However, their icon is blank (not that of the associated program) and when I try to open the file it says 'The application can't be found.'

I can't identify a specific event after which this behavior appeared. It is not 100% consistent but happens for most books. I have not identified any pattern allowing to predict it.

As you see, this problem is very serious as it could destroy many books without me even knowing about it (I could open a book, close it and think it's fine while in fact it's been corrupted). Any ideas to pinpoint and solve the problem would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks, W.

[LadyKate]

First, Can you open the ebook again in calibre?

As to opening the ebook in your favorite ebook viewer, assuming you are using some version of windows, if the message is "application can't be found" the file system does not recognize the ebook file as having any program associated with it.

Try highlighting the ebook you wish to read, right click on it and select open with. Choose your ebook reader program from the list of programs available.

[eschwartz]

The OS should evaluate a file based on the file extension. If you rename a music file to "my-music-file.epub", then as far as the OS knows, it's an ebook.

This is a problem with the file associations.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by wladdy

Hello,

I use Calibre 2.3 on a 13" mid-2011 MacBook Air (1,7GHZ Intel Core i5, 4GB 1333 MHz DDR3) running OS X 10.9.5.

I have a major problem with my library (about 8000 books):
when I import a book, open it or change its metadata, the book becomes unreadable. Looking in the path, the files are still there, properly named, with the right extension. They also have the expected size. However, their icon is blank (not that of the associated program) and when I try to open the file it says 'The application can't be found.'

I can't identify a specific event after which this behavior appeared. It is not 100% consistent but happens for most books. I have not identified any pattern allowing to predict it.

As you see, this problem is very serious as it could destroy many books without me even knowing about it (I could open a book, close it and think it's fine while in fact it's been corrupted). Any ideas to pinpoint and solve the problem would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks, W.

@wladdy - Does the file have its icon and can you read the book in the associated viewer before you add it to the calibre library ?

BR