Error File Not Found

[Ralcbeck]

(Sigil 1.5.1) Initially Sigil was working fine and now I think something has become corrupted with an EPUB file. Initially Sigil made an epub file which worked fine as I added chapters to an ebook. Then suddenly I got a "File Not Found" error for an image. Yet, looking at the list of files in Images, it was there. Inside the html code the location was set as: "../Images/myfile.jpg". After many attempts I tried "images/myfile.jpg" and it worked. Since that time more corruptions have happened -- now Thorium ereader displays files fine but Adobe Digital Reader can't find certain images or fonts that worked before.

1) What is going on? Personally, I think there is a bug in Sigil.
2) I have a book length document -- what is the best way to move content to a brand new epub file without also moving the unknown error in the file structure or pointers. (Reloading Sigil and reopening the same file had the same result.)

Thanks,
Ralcbeck

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Ralcbeck

1) What is going on? Personally, I think there is a bug in Sigil.

Not impossible, but I doubt it in this particular case. Case sensitivity matters. Creating epubs with Sigil on case insensitive platforms like Windows can lead people to believe that everything is "OK" when in fact, it's not. Readers and platforms that ARE case sensitive will expose these types of issues. The EpubCheck validator (standalone or Sigil plugin) will point out these differences (even though Sigil's Preview on Windows may still display the image/resource because the path is, in fact, valid on that platform).

You can't just recreate a new epub and copy the content to fix these kind of casing issues, you need to use the epubcheck validator to see which referenced resources can't be found in the epub and make sure the case of the src attribute in the xhtml exactly matches that of the href attribute in the manifest of the OPF file.

It's the cost of doing case sensitive cross-platform work on a case-insensitive platform. You have to be on your toes and validate often to pick up on and fix these kind of errors.

[Ralcbeck]

Thanks DiapDealer -- appreciate the comment.

The problem seemed to be in CSS. So I deleted all the CSS and installed all 250 lines in segments until the error returned. I found the problem, but it was a painful process.

The error (mine, of course) was the lack of a 'single' quote at the end of a font name. This error was not caught by Sigil (it cost me several days of work). And, that error crashes all the CSS in Adobe Digital Editions, messes up the path names for Sigil and is mostly tolerated by Thorium.

Long story but a happy ending. Be very careful with the single quotes around font names. And please, Sigil, please add this to your error finder.

Ralcbeck

[DiapDealer]

Sigil already provides a css validation feature that will identify syntax errors like yours in css.

As to Sigil's error finder: there really isn't one. Sigil has basically taken itself out of the syntax validation game. Sigil 's Well-Formed Check is just that. It's only the most basic of checks to make sure code is machine parsable. It only checks to make sure that all opening tags are properly closed and makes sure no illegal nesting of tags is occurring, but that's about it.

But Sigil does allow for 3rd-party validation plugins (there's one for EpubCheck), and it uses the W3C online validation tool to allow users to validate their css (against different css levels that are configurable in Sigil's preferences). The css validation tool is found in the menu under Tools->Validate Stylesheets with W3C. Users find it invaluable for discovering simple, but often overlooked, syntax errors. They use it precisely because Adobe's RMSDK will bail on everything when it encounters any syntax errors whatsoever. Other rendering engines tend to be more forgiving.