Issues in Ubuntu Natty?

rschauer · 06-26-2011, 02:10 PM

Hi all,

New to the forum today; I'm thrilled to see a Calibre board. Great piece of software. I currently run Calibre on two different machines in Ubuntu Maverick with no issues whatsoever.

However, on one machine, I experienced an issue under Ubuntu Natty (11.04) which seemed to prevent me from e-mailing files to my Kindle. (For the record, I use the Gmail configuration.) The e-mail function didn't seem to work at all.

The machine that had the issue is my work laptop, and there are some software "layers" that my employer develops and requires me to have installed. I have seen some components of these layers wreak havoc on other programs that I haven't had trouble with elsewhere, so that could be the issue. I have since downgraded that machine back to Maverick, because it was nearly impossible to do my job around the many issues our version of Natty seems to be ridden with.

I do have Natty installed (alongside Win7) on my personal laptop, so that will be the next machine I attempt it from, to see if I can reproduce the issue. If it turns out that my personal Natty machine has no trouble with it, I'll assume the problem is related to my company's customizations. I'll follow up with any updates or progress.

In the meantime, I'm just curious as to whether anyone else has seen similar behavior. If so, were you able to pinpoint and/or fix the problem?

user_none · 06-26-2011, 02:32 PM

There are issues with Qt apps (calibre) and Unity causing the X server to crash.

Also, be sure you are using the binary installer form http://calibre-ebook.com because Ubuntu is known to ship their calibre package in a broken state. No support will be given here for the Ubuntu package.

rschauer · 06-26-2011, 09:34 PM

Thanks for the reply.

I should have mentioned that I wasn't using Unity on that installation; my employer's proprietary software is completely messed up under Unity, so I was using Gnome 2. I did, however, install Calibre from the Canonical repository. I will try both versions in both environments today.

Your statement about Qt causing X to crash under Unity is very enlightening. That might just explain every session crash I experienced on that machine. Perhaps it's not entirely our Linux development team's fault after all.

kovidgoyal · 06-26-2011, 09:38 PM

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...re/+bug/754886

rschauer · 06-26-2011, 11:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...re/+bug/754886

Thanks. That does explain a lot.

I was having the same session crash problem, but not always when running Calibre, and not always in Unity. So at this point, I'm pretty sure the crashing was due to another Qt app as user_none suggested.

The real problem I wanted to address in this thread, though, is that in both Unity and "Classic" (Gnome 2), Calibre refused to send e-mails. No errors or missing options or anything, it just didn't work. The e-mail test in the preferences window just hung the application. Trying to send books from the main window didn't cause a hang, it just didn't do anything. Perhaps this is just a flaw in the Ubuntu repo version, as also suggested by user_none.

I will follow up after I've had a chance to test it later tonight.

rschauer · 06-27-2011, 02:06 AM

OK, I tested all the conditions on my personal laptop with the following results.

Ubuntu repo version:
No session crashes, e-mail test worked fine. Attempts to e-mail books did absolutely nothing.

Binary install from official site:
Everything works fine! I also noticed that there are some newer features the repo version has not caught up to, and that it does not use the default Ubuntu font (a good thing, in this case; I suppose that's configurable, but I can't usually be bothered).

I had the same results in both Unity and Gnome 2. I'm assuming that either the session crash bug in Unity has been fixed, or will rear its head at a later time (perhaps after running Calibre longer).

Thanks again for the info and suggestions, and for replying so quickly! I hope the details here help others in the future.

06-26-2011, 02:10 PM	#1
rschauer Enthusiast Posts: 29 Karma: 40 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Iowa Device: Kindle 3	Issues in Ubuntu Natty? Hi all, New to the forum today; I'm thrilled to see a Calibre board. Great piece of software. I currently run Calibre on two different machines in Ubuntu Maverick with no issues whatsoever. However, on one machine, I experienced an issue under Ubuntu Natty (11.04) which seemed to prevent me from e-mailing files to my Kindle. (For the record, I use the Gmail configuration.) The e-mail function didn't seem to work at all. The machine that had the issue is my work laptop, and there are some software "layers" that my employer develops and requires me to have installed. I have seen some components of these layers wreak havoc on other programs that I haven't had trouble with elsewhere, so that could be the issue. I have since downgraded that machine back to Maverick, because it was nearly impossible to do my job around the many issues our version of Natty seems to be ridden with. I do have Natty installed (alongside Win7) on my personal laptop, so that will be the next machine I attempt it from, to see if I can reproduce the issue. If it turns out that my personal Natty machine has no trouble with it, I'll assume the problem is related to my company's customizations. I'll follow up with any updates or progress. In the meantime, I'm just curious as to whether anyone else has seen similar behavior. If so, were you able to pinpoint and/or fix the problem?

06-26-2011, 09:34 PM	#3
rschauer Enthusiast Posts: 29 Karma: 40 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Iowa Device: Kindle 3	Thanks for the reply. I should have mentioned that I wasn't using Unity on that installation; my employer's proprietary software is completely messed up under Unity, so I was using Gnome 2. I did, however, install Calibre from the Canonical repository. I will try both versions in both environments today. Your statement about Qt causing X to crash under Unity is very enlightening. That might just explain every session crash I experienced on that machine. Perhaps it's not entirely our Linux development team's fault after all. Last edited by rschauer; 06-26-2011 at 09:35 PM. Reason: typo

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06-26-2011, 02:32 PM	#2
user_none Sigil & calibre developer Posts: 2,487 Karma: 1063785 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Florida, USA Device: Nook STR	There are issues with Qt apps (calibre) and Unity causing the X server to crash. Also, be sure you are using the binary installer form http://calibre-ebook.com because Ubuntu is known to ship their calibre package in a broken state. No support will be given here for the Ubuntu package.

06-26-2011, 09:38 PM	#4
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 44,020 Karma: 22669822 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...re/+bug/754886

06-27-2011, 02:06 AM	#6
rschauer Enthusiast Posts: 29 Karma: 40 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Iowa Device: Kindle 3	OK, I tested all the conditions on my personal laptop with the following results. Ubuntu repo version: No session crashes, e-mail test worked fine. Attempts to e-mail books did absolutely nothing. Binary install from official site: Everything works fine! I also noticed that there are some newer features the repo version has not caught up to, and that it does not use the default Ubuntu font (a good thing, in this case; I suppose that's configurable, but I can't usually be bothered). I had the same results in both Unity and Gnome 2. I'm assuming that either the session crash bug in Unity has been fixed, or will rear its head at a later time (perhaps after running Calibre longer). Thanks again for the info and suggestions, and for replying so quickly! I hope the details here help others in the future.

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