Calibre UI Missing?

[robertn51]

Hi all. Long time Calibre user. Like 3,000+ e-books long.

This is a Windows 10 situation. Just started today (2023-10-30). And seems "permanent."

Calibre was updated from file calibre-64bit-6.29.0.msi on 2023-10-23

Windows is
Edition: Windows 10 Pro
Version: 22H2
Installed on: ‎19-‎Jun-‎20
OS build: 19045.3570

I do not allow Windows to update without me so this wasn't some backdoor sneak from MS.

I was working in other unrelated programs when Calibre "winked out".

The specific action was dragging an ODT file (Libre Office Text) onto Calibre for an EPUB conversion. Usual, yada, yada. Did it earlier today, last night, weeks, without a hitch.

But this time Calibre said "Bye Felicia" and hasn't spoken since.

Hmmm. Just went and looked. The metadata for ODT file I dropped did not make it into the Library DB. Today's earlier one is there, but the later one isn't. Crashed before update?

I can see Calibre "running" in the Task Manager Apps pane, but there is no window on screen.

Oh. And looking at the details under the "The main calibre program (3)" in Task Manager there is a "Console Windows Host" task running under Calibre. Along with the usual "calibre worker process" and the "The main calibre program". I don't recall seeing that Console Windows Host" in there before. Hmmm.... again... an application window initialization hang?

All these symptoms appeared when I restarted Calibre after that "wink-out."

But.... could there have been something in that ODT file that hosed something in the non-volatile data somewhere? It was merely edits to the earlier version. Edits and a name-timestamp-change for version fork.

Please. It is not running "off-screen" -- there is no window frame showing when I Alt-Tab into it. The usual MOVE, etc., fix for "off-screen" situations, do not bring a window into view. (The Move starts at 0,0 which could be a clue that Windows has not yet initialized a Window for the task? Unless maybe there's a 0x0 window at screen 0,0?)

A white box without a frame is not yet a window. Not that I have a white window on-screen. There is nothing on-screen. The "white box" is what shows in the Alt-Tab response. A white box with a size bigger than normal. Like maybe default fullscreen.

Calibre seems to be running without a UI.

I can see that Calibre runs because the "metadata_db_prefs_backup.json" and "metadata.db" files timetags in the Calibre Library are updated when I start it.

The Library is out on a NAS so there's that wrinkle. But when I rename the NAS to confuse Calibre, I can see Calibre do the reasonable thing and fallback to update the meta data files on the default Local Drive. The old John Schember "Quick Start" default in User.

So. It runs. But the IU is not initializing? For some cosmic-ray reason? Halloween?

I windows-uninstalled Calibre 29.0 and installed Calibre 28.1 from its msi. Same symptoms. I don't know if Windows-Uninstall clears Registry, so there's a possibility for a corrupted something-or-other down in there?

No other Off-Store app on the system is exhibiting difficulties. (sometimes there's a problem with the developer's choice of Windows library. WMF or whatever, etc.)

If some component of Windows has corrupted it appears to be something only Calibre uses? And maybe only for its UI?

Maybe I poisoned something with that last ODT drop? Maybe Calibre doesn't like my 3,000 ebooks. Maybe it's time I threw some money? (Seriously that is in the end of year budget changes, promise.)

Any similar problem with you all? Any ideas?

[kovidgoyal]

Look at the first item in https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq...s-occasionally

[dhowl]

I have the same issue. Splash screen loads but full UI won't load. Went through the FAQ steps but to no avail. Did you get yours to work? Below is output from command prompt:

calibre 6.29  embedded-python: True
Windows-10-10.0.19045-SP0 Windows ('64bit', 'WindowsPE')
('Windows', '10', '10.0.19045')
Python 3.10.1
Windows: ('10', '10.0.19045', 'SP0', 'Multiprocessor Free')
Interface language: None
Failed to initialize plugin: 'C:\\Users\\name\\AppData\\Roaming\\calibre\\plugins\\DeDRM.zip'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "calibre\customize\ui.py", line 777, in initialize_plugins
  File "calibre\customize\ui.py", line 64, in load_plugin
  File "calibre\customize\zipplugin.py", line 307, in load
  File "importlib\__init__.py", line 126, in import_module
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1050, in _gcd_import
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1027, in _find_and_load
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 1006, in _find_and_load_unlocked
  File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 688, in _load_unlocked
  File "calibre\customize\zipplugin.py", line 199, in exec_module
  File "calibre\customize\zipplugin.py", line 195, in get_code
  File "calibre_plugins.dedrm.__init__", line 164
    print u"{0} v{1}: Copying needed library files from plugin's zip".format(PLUGIN_NAME, PLUGIN_VERSION)
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
SyntaxError: Missing parentheses in call to 'print'. Did you mean print(...)?
Successfully initialized third party plugins: Gather KFX-ZIP (from KFX Input) (2, 5, 0) && Package KFX (from KFX Input) (2, 5, 0) && Clean Metadata (0, 0, 6) && Count Pages (1, 13, 4) && Goodreads (1, 7, 9) && Goodreads Sync (1, 16, 3) && KFX metadata reader (from KFX Input) (2, 5, 0) && KFX Input (2, 5, 0) && Set KFX metadata (from KFX Output) (2, 3, 1) && KFX Output (2, 3, 1) && Kindle hi-res covers (0, 5, 0) && Quality Check (1, 13, 6)
QPA platform: windows
devicePixelRatio: 2.0
logicalDpi: 96.0 x 96.0
physicalDpi: 130.03412969283275 x 129.59183673469386
ApplicationPaletteChange event ignored
Using calibre Qt style: True
ApplicationPaletteChange event received
[0.00] Starting up...
[0.00] Showing splash screen...
[0.17] splash screen shown
[0.17] Initializing db...
[0.17] db initialized
[0.17] Constructing main UI...
[1.88] main UI initialized...
[1.88] Hiding splash screen
Starting QuickView
[2.03] splash screen hidden
[2.03] Started up in 2.03 seconds with 0 books

[BetterRed]

Try right click taskbar, left click Cascade.

BR

[dhowl]

No change. It's not a monitor thing. I'm just on a laptop. It just doesn't fully load the UI.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by dhowl

No change. It's not a monitor thing. I'm just on a laptop. It just doesn't fully load the UI.

Attachment 204599

Try restart in debug mode - Ctrl+Shift+R.

Or, from the command line, see calibre-debug

When you quit from debug mode you will be taken to the debug log, copy and post results here.

BR

[dhowl]

print u"{0} v{1}: Copying needed library files from plugin's zip".format(PLUGIN_NAME, PLUGIN_VERSION)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^
SyntaxError: Missing parentheses in call to 'print'. Did you mean print(...)?
ApplicationPaletteChange event ignored
Using calibre Qt style: True
ApplicationPaletteChange event received
calibre Debug log
calibre 6.29 embedded-python: True
Windows-10-10.0.19045-SP0 Windows ('64bit', 'WindowsPE')
('Windows', '10', '10.0.19045')
Python 3.10.1
Windows: ('10', '10.0.19045', 'SP0', 'Multiprocessor Free')
Interface language: None
Successfully initialized third party plugins: Gather KFX-ZIP (from KFX Input) (2, 5, 0) && Package KFX (from KFX Input) (2, 5, 0) && Clean Metadata (0, 0, 6) && Count Pages (1, 13, 4) && Goodreads (1, 7, 9) && Goodreads Sync (1, 16, 3) && KFX metadata reader (from KFX Input) (2, 5, 0) && KFX Input (2, 5, 0) && Set KFX metadata (from KFX Output) (2, 3, 1) && KFX Output (2, 3, 1) && Kindle hi-res covers (0, 5, 0) && Quality Check (1, 13, 6)
calibre 6.29 embedded-python: True
Windows-10-10.0.19045-SP0 Windows ('64bit', 'WindowsPE')
('Windows', '10', '10.0.19045')
Python 3.10.1
Windows: ('10', '10.0.19045', 'SP0', 'Multiprocessor Free')
Interface language: None
Successfully initialized third party plugins: Gather KFX-ZIP (from KFX Input) (2, 5, 0) && Package KFX (from KFX Input) (2, 5, 0) && Clean Metadata (0, 0, 6) && Count Pages (1, 13, 4) && Goodreads (1, 7, 9) && Goodreads Sync (1, 16, 3) && KFX metadata reader (from KFX Input) (2, 5, 0) && KFX Input (2, 5, 0) && Set KFX metadata (from KFX Output) (2, 3, 1) && KFX Output (2, 3, 1) && Kindle hi-res covers (0, 5, 0) && Quality Check (1, 13, 6)
QPA platform: windows
devicePixelRatio: 2.0
logicalDpi: 96.0 x 96.0
physicalDpi: 130.03412969283275 x 129.59183673469386
[0.00] Starting up...
[0.00] Showing splash screen...
[0.17] splash screen shown
[0.17] Initializing db...
[0.17] db initialized
[0.17] Constructing main UI...
[1.66] main UI initialized...
[1.66] Hiding splash screen
Starting QuickView

[BetterRed]

Looks normal to me.

Try restarting with no plugins - Ctrl+Shift+Alt+R

And try Kovid's suggestions here ==>> https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...36&postcount=2

What's weird is the title bar is displayed: try putting Windows into Dark mode, it's in Settings->Personalise->Color

BR

[DNSB]

Possibly try adding an environment variable called QTWEBENGINE_CHROMIUM_FLAGS with the value set to --disable-gpu to see if that helps.

[dhowl]

Thanks guys. No luck with either suggestion. I must have done something to my system to break something. The splash screen displays and then the main UI (a white box at least) flashes for a milisecond and then that's it. Looks like I might have to re-install windows or something, although starting in safe mode didn't make a difference either.

[dhowl]

I ran a 32 bit build (3.48.0) and it worked. Not sure what that means, but it's something.

[BetterRed]

Means its using an older version of the Qt framework that calibre uses for most UI related functionality. Qt is the root source of many problems if this ilk

Try installing version 5.44 32bit - it's the last of the 32 bit calibres

Another thing to try is a fresh install of the portable edition of current version ==>> https://calibre-ebook.com/download_portable

BR

[dhowl]

Appreciate the help. 5.44 works. I guess I'll use that. What is weird is I've been on 6 ever since it came out and have upgraded each time without issues, and I've been on 6.29 since it came out too, so it wasn't like it stopped working on the latest update.

[kovidgoyal]

You can also try the calibre 7 beta which has a newer version of Qt.

[dhowl]

Thanks Kovid. Tried the beta. Same effect.