Can I do anything to rectify calibre/dropbox editing error now or is it too late?

[Whedon]

I've been doing research this morning on an issue that I started encountering since December. I was doing a big library metadata maintenance and started getting errors such as:

calibre, version 2.45.0
ERROR: Permission denied: Could not change the on disk location of this book. Is it open in another program?

Locked file: d:\dropbox\calibre library\george r.r. martin\a dance with dragons (18)\cover.jpg

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\library\models.py", line 1054, in setData
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\library\models.py", line 1128, in _set_data
File "site-packages\calibre\db\legacy.py", line 438, in set
File "site-packages\calibre\db\cache.py", line 57, in call_func_with_lock
File "site-packages\calibre\db\cache.py", line 1061, in set_field
File "site-packages\calibre\db\cache.py", line 1075, in update_path
File "site-packages\calibre\db\backend.py", line 1492, in update_path
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\filenames.py", line 374, in __init__
IOError: [Errno 13] File is open in another process: u'd:\\dropbox\\calibre library\\george r.r. martin\\a dance with dragons (18)\\cover.jpg'

I have now found that to prevent this error (I keep my entire calibre library in Dropbox) that I should exit dropbox before making changes to library data, then restart dropbox and let it fully sync once finished editing files.

Well, obviously I didn't do that; I was in a hurry and just kept hitting OK on the error message when I initially couldn't figure out what was wrong after a quick google search. Is there anything I can do now, after the fact, to repair/sync/fix any files that may have popped up the error messages before I knew to turn Dropbox off? Start from scratch, resync it, ignore it because it doesn't really matter?

Thanks for reading!

[eschwartz]

Right-click on the Library icon, and run Library Maintenance ==> Check library

If it reports extra files, particularly Dropbox's "conflicted copies", you will need to resolve those conflicts.
If it reports missing files, you will need to find and restore those files.

[Whedon]

Success. Found no errors in your Calibre library database. The files in your library match the information in the database.

No errors and all files match! I don't know how it reconciled all those pop-up error messages, but I'm so glad it did. Thank you very much for your guidance, I couldn't find that library option before posting because I hadn't ejected my kindle. So now it looks like I'm all sorted out, thank you again. Do I need to close the thread or mark solved or anything?

[JSWolf]

The solution is to not use your library in a Sync directory or on Dropbox.

You can keep a copy of the library on Dropbox, but a local copy is what you need for your working copy.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Whedon

Success. Found no errors in your Calibre library database. The files in your library match the information in the database.

No errors and all files match! I don't know how it reconciled all those pop-up error messages, but I'm so glad it did. Thank you very much for your guidance, I couldn't find that library option before posting because I hadn't ejected my kindle. So now it looks like I'm all sorted out, thank you again.

Not every incorrect usage of syncing ends up with disaster striking.
Happy to help.

Do remember to be more careful in the future, you might not always be so lucky.

I've kept my main library directly in Dropbox for a long time, and disaster (and scary popups) never struck -- but I was always very careful to pause syncing while calibre is running.

Do I need to close the thread or mark solved or anything?

Nothing needs to be done -- you've told us your resolution, anyone else who reads this thread will see that.
(Only moderators can close threads or change the title. MobileRead does not have a stated policy about doing so when questions are answered.)