[1.2.0] Unable to download books or news

[Starbeam]

Hello, I'm a longtime Calibre user, first time poster.

I recently updated to version 1.0 (I've since updated to 1.1, and now 1.2, without any change), and almost immediately I stopped being able to download ebooks (through the "Get Books" feature). Whenever I try, the task stays at "Unavailable" progress for literally hours without any change. Eventually Calibre becomes completely unresponsive and I have to force it to close. I am still able to download metadata, albeit slowly. Usually, an entry for the book is created in the library, just without any actual books attached to it. The log from calibre-debug is...less than useful. (I do get an unlogged message that "eReader PDB 2 PML" is an invalid plugin, but as I can't uninstall or disable it, there's not much I can do there.) I'm not able to cancel the downloading task either.

If I try to download news, exactly the same thing happens -- Calibre hangs, a listing is created, and the ebook file is not added to said listing. However, it does provide conceivably useful logs. It's immediately after the last line ("EPUB output written to...") that Calibre stops responding indefinitely. The headline list appears in the metadata as well.

Out of concern that the freeze was caused by the size of my main library, I switched to a much smaller one (~30 books) tried again. Same result. Here are the relevant logs.

I'm honestly not sure if this is a bug or simply a feat of idiocy on my part -- if the latter, it certainly wouldn't be the first time. Either way, I would be immensely grateful to find out, and offer thanks in advance.

I'm using version 1.2 on Windows 7. This and this are the books I tried to Get. The news recipe is an absurdly simple custom one for the Slacktivist blog at Patheos; it has worked since May 2013 with nary a problem. I would provide a list of my plugins, but calibre-customize for some reason crashed whenever I tried to generate one.

Again, thanks in advance!

[DoctorOhh]

Just a wild guess, but it sounds like you may have to allow calibre.exe through your firewall.

[Starbeam]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

Just a wild guess, but it sounds like you may have to allow calibre.exe through your firewall.

Thank you, but unfortunately, this didn't seem to help. It was a good idea though.

What exactly is supposed to happen after an ePub is created in the temp folder during news download? That step seems a likely culprit, but I can't exactly test it myself.

[kovidgoyal]

You've likely got some antivirus software blocking calibre. Disable it and you should be fine. Or add exceptions for calibre.exe and calibre-parallel.exe.

[Starbeam]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

You've likely got some antivirus software blocking calibre. Disable it and you should be fine. Or add exceptions for calibre.exe and calibre-parallel.exe.

Thanks -- I tried completely disabling my firewall and antivirus, just in case, but it doesn't seem to have made any difference. Here is the log. I think it bears mentioning that the 404 error only is only logged after Calibre has been closed, not before or during the unresponsive portion.

Spoiler:

calibre 1.2 isfrozen: True is64bit: False
Windows-7-6.1.7601-SP1 Windows ('32bit', 'WindowsPE')
('Windows', '7', '6.1.7601')
Python 2.7.4
Windows: ('7', '6.1.7601', 'SP1', 'Multiprocessor Free')
Failed to initialize plugin: u'C:\\Users\\starbeam\\AppData\\Roaming\\calibre\\ plugins\\eReader PDB 2 PML.zip'
Starting up...
action:init_options(disable_caching: True)
annotations_db:connect(db_version: 1)
action:load_dynamic_reader_classes()
loading built-in class 'GoodReader'
loading built-in class 'Kindle'
loading built-in class 'Marvin'
Plugin FanFictionDownLoader macmenuhack file_path:C:\Users\starbeam\AppData\Roaming\calibr e\plugins\fanfictiondownloader_macmenuhack.txt
style:
macmenuhack file_path:C:\Users\starbeam\AppData\Roaming\calibr e\plugins\fanfictiondownloader_macmenuhack.txt
DEBUG: 0.0 No Kobo Touch, Glo or Mini appears to be connected
Started up in 16.88 seconds with 2998 books
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Traceback ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\store\search\download_thread .py", line 119, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\store\stores\pragmatic_books helf_plugin.py", line 22, in search
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\store\opensearch_store.py", line 57, in search
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_mechanize.py", line 203, in open
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_mechanize.py", line 255, in _mech_open
httperror_seek_wrapper: HTTP Error 404: Not Found
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Again, metadata -- through the metadata download dialog, or as part of adding books or news -- can be downloaded without problems. With news downloading, the problem seems consistently to occur immediately after an epub is created in the temp folder. What is supposed to happen after that, generally?

[kovidgoyal]

After a file is generated int he temp directory, it is copied into the calibre library.