Techie Dunce. Device not seen help. Please

[ingipops]

Hi

posting in here hoping form some friendly (simple!) advice.

I am a complete techie dunce and will do my best to offer as much information as possible.

I have been using Calibre with great success for some time now, I use it to put books on both my Kindle Fire and an old Sony reader.

The Sony reader recently died, this may be where my woes started as I guddled about a bit with settings (changing file formats).

Anyway, a wee while ago I had an 'update' message and I opted to upgrade to newer version and it now seems my Calibre isn't seeing my kindle.

I am using a wee netbook with Windows XP

Some time has been spent on this.

Firstly I uninstalled the new Calibre and went back to previous version 1.48

I restored my kindle to factory settings

I cried a wee bit

I made sure I was connecting only one device at a time.

I ensured my operating system is seeing the kindle...it is.

Ive checked under preferences to make sure its not an ignored device...its not

I at this point retired for coffee and cake

Ive gone to 'preferences' miscellaneous and did a 'debug device detection' and this was the result...

calibre 1.48 isfrozen: True is64bit: False
Windows-XP-5.1.2600-SP2 Windows ('32bit', 'WindowsPE')
('Windows', 'XP', '5.1.2600')
Python 2.7.5
Windows: ('XP', '5.1.2600', 'SP2', 'Multiprocessor Free')
USB devices on system:
[u'usb\\root_hub&vid8086&pid27cb&rev0002',
u'usb\\root_hub&vid8086&pid27ca&rev0002',
u'usb\\root_hub&vid8086&pid27c9&rev0002',
u'usb\\root_hub&vid8086&pid27c8&rev0002',
u'usb\\root_hub20&vid8086&pid27cc&rev0002',
u'usb\\vid_0a5c&pid_219c&rev_0628',
u'usb\\vid_1949&pid_000a&rev_0216',
u'usb\\vid_2232&pid_1006&rev_0003',
u'usb\\vid_2232&pid_1006&rev_0003&mi_00']
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\devices\scanner.py", line 85, in __call__
DriveError: No removable drives found
Drives detected:

Disabled plugins: ITUNES

Looking for devices of type: MTP_DEVICE
Cannot detect MTP devices
MTP devices are not supported on Windows XP

Looking for devices...

Devices possibly connected: None



I've now swore a few times and cried a bit more, Ive spent 6 hours (on my day off when I could be reading!) on this.

I am not very techie (read as techno dunce) and wondered if anyone could shed some light, short of me buying a new kindle/laptop?

Many many thanks in advance.

Ingi

[theducks]

MTP is not supported by Calibre on XP... just too many flaky connections.

Switch to Linux (mint )
if you really want to use those 2 pieces of hardware together
(W7 needs way more RAM than Linux. )

[ingipops]

Originally Posted by theducks

MTP is not supported by Calibre on XP... just too many flaky connections.

Switch to Linux (mint )
if you really want to use those 2 pieces of hardware together
(W7 needs way more RAM than Linux. )

Thanks very much for your response (and for moving my query to the correct location).

Now...erm what is MTP? Ive had a google and well, I did admit to being a techie dunce so am very confused.

I've been using Calibre on this wee netbook successfully for a couple of years, only had problems for the last week.

Could I have (in my techie wisdom?) have tweaked a setting I could 'untweak'?

Thanks again

Ingi (who would much rather be reading!)

[eschwartz]

Tablets like the Kindle fire do not show up as USB external storage, the way e-ink ereaders do. They use the Media Transfer Protocol, which is not available for Windows XP.

According to that, your Kindle Fire should never have worked with your netbook, although the Sony would work.


Your options are:

• Buy a new computer, with a modern operating system.
• Install a modern operating system on your current computer. This means linux, since Windows 7 likely won't run. I suggest Linux Mint.
• Give up, and only use your Kindle Fire with the calibre Content Server.

[theducks]

IIRC There was 1 release that allowed MTP on XP. The flood of problems was enough that ability got turned off fast for XP

[ingipops]

Thanks both for your replies.

Seems all a bit odd....it 'shouldn't have worked', but did for 2 years? and now it won't work?

Confused Ingi

[eschwartz]

If you think you're confused, you should consider how we feel -- we at least think/thought we knew what should happen.