K5 FW 5.x ScreenSavers Hack

[Andrewzz]

Originally Posted by knc1

Install Python.

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@Andrewzz: You're most likely reading a KFX book. Try with the latest snapshots.
Or your current read simply has no proper cover set in its metadata (... or it's a PDF. Or a periodical?).

It was the Python package. It seems you can't install two package at once using the MRI installer

I installed it and everything is working right!!

Thanks to you both!!

[NiLuJe]

@Andrewzz: Hmm, yes you can? (More than two, actually ).

[NiLuJe]

@dhdurgee: I only see one book opening in the logs, and it's one without an ASIN at all.

IIRC, that shouldn't be an issue, the Kindle should generate an old style hash automatically, but here, it doesn't appear to be the case, and you have a shiny NULL instead. Which, besides pissing off the framework, makes it invisible to the hack (by design).

So, err, no idea? AFAIK, that's not how straight from KindleGen files should behave. If you PM me the book, I can check on my end in more details how it gets digested by the framework, but I'm guessing something's wonky in the metadata...

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@dhdurgee: I only see one book opening in the logs, and it's one without an ASIN at all.

IIRC, that shouldn't be an issue, the Kindle should generate an old style hash automatically, but here, it doesn't appear to be the case, and you have a shiny NULL instead. Which, besides pissing off the framework, makes it invisible to the hack (by design).

So, err, no idea? AFAIK, that's not how straight from KindleGen files should behave. If you PM me the book, I can check on my end in more details how it gets digested by the framework, but I'm guessing something's wonky in the metadata...

PM won't work, no attachments supported. I could attach it here, but I would need to confirm that I don't violate guidelines. The particular book is available online for free for the week:

http://kriswrites.com/2016/02/08/fre...nday-handfast/

I created my copy by opening Sigil and copy/pasting the contents by hand. I also hand-edited the metadata and used a plugin to insert the proper cover. I saved a copy as an epub and used the Kindlegen plugin to create the .azw3 file I side-loaded to the K2T.

Please take a look and let me know if I can attach it here. Otherwise perhaps the settings for the forums need to be changed to permit attachments in PM messages.

Dave

[eschwartz]

You could probably use a Dropbox link. Or use a password-protected ZIP upload in-thread and PM the password. Both methods have been used for handling sensitive info in the past (and in the absence of a proper bugtracker).

But MobileRead strongly discourages uploading copyrighted books (even if they are free to download they are not free to distribute).
Even for debugging purposes (I suspect it may be because it *looks* bad).


You can, however, use @jackie_w's ScrambleEbook utility for troubleshooting ebooks.

Presumably you should be able to duplicate the error with a Kindlegenned output from that, in which case upload the scrambled book.

[dhdurgee]

Per suggestion, I am attaching a password protected zip. I will PM you the password.

Dave

[NiLuJe]

@dhdurgee: Got it, you can scrap the attachment .

I'll look into it after dinner .

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@dhdurgee: Got it, you can scrap the attachment .

I'll look into it after dinner .

Thanks for your assistance.

I just thought of something to try, I am going to remove the .azw3 versions of these books, clear cache and restart. Then I will see if the .mobi files still work right. I was recently told that the are separate viewers used for the two types, so it would be possible it is an issue with .azw3 only.

Dave

PS: COVER WORKS WITH .MOBI! FOR BOTH BOOKS. WEIRD.

[knc1]

Does the Kindle reader now display post-script?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript

[NiLuJe]

For some reason, the KF8 version indeed doesn't get a cdeKey attributed, even an old-style hash. That's... weird?

(And that field being NULL is screwing with quite a number of things, BTW).

Potentially a FW 5.6.x change? (I checked on a 5.7.2 PW2). I can't really do anything for that. After all, the name of the field is pretty accurate, it's key .

I'm fairly sure that untouched, KindleGen produced dual mobis DO get one. So, err, very strange.
I don't recall if I ever did some testing with KF8 files split from dual-mobis, but I *think* I did, and that worked fine.

So, meh? If you can reproduce the issue with another book using the same workflow, it's either a bug somewhere in the chain of said workflow, or the Kindle framework not dealing with it well (in which case, I'd go back to: bug in the workflow, just assign a random uuid as the ASIN, like Calibre does, because that works).

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

For some reason, the KF8 version indeed doesn't get a cdeKey attributed, even an old-style hash. That's... weird?

Potentially a FW 5.6.x change? I can't really do anything for that. After all, the name of the field is pretty accurate, it's key .

Are you saying that it is not possible to use cover mode with KF8 files on firmware 5.6.5? Wow! My next question of course is does 5.7.2 have the same issue? If not, time to seriously think about updating. If both have the problem then I guess I will have to choose between covers and the additional formatting features.

Dave

[NiLuJe]

@dhdurgee: No, cover mode works perfectly fine with *sane* KF8 files.

I'm saying there's either something very weird about that specific file, or the framework is just not equipped to deal with KF8 files without an ASIN.

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@dhdurgee: No, cover mode works perfectly fine with *sane* KF8 files.

I'm saying there's either something very weird about that specific file, or the framework is just not equipped to deal with KF8 files without an ASIN.

Ah. How do I make a problem KF8 "sane" to get this working?

I am seeing the same issue with the KF8 version of another book and looking at the content.opf from that KindleUnpack extracted there IS an ASIN there. I am attaching it for your inspection.

If you need more to diagnose the problem with this book let me know.

Dave

[NiLuJe]

Okay, just checked w/ KindleGen & KindleUnpack.

KindleGen dual mobis: OK
KindleGen dual mobis + KindleUnpack split: M7: OK; KF8: MEEP.

----

sqlite3 /var/local/cc.db 'SELECT p_location,p_cdeKey,p_mimeType,p_lastAccess FROM Entries WHERE p_location NOT NULL;'

/mnt/us/documents/Shakespeare, William/Complete Works - William Shakespeare.azw3|baf51c6a-16d5-43ac-adea-f209d90df1f8|application/x-mobi8-ebook|1419008080
/mnt/us/documents/KFX/Life on the Mississippi_B0084B1X2Q.kfx|B0084B1X2Q|application/x-kfx-ebook|1443215342
/mnt/us/documents/TEST/Handfast.azw3||application/x-mobi8-ebook|1455051463
/mnt/us/documents/TEST/mobi8-Macbeth - William Shakespeare.azw3||application/x-mobi8-ebook|1455052526
/mnt/us/documents/TEST/Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte.mobi|*a2e8b957b1749ccbf9ec518b9f8e3055dc1b6e23|application/x-mobipocket-ebook|1455052530

Notice the lack of either a proper asin, or a hash. Which is... bad.
In addition to that, those files have a crappy tiny thumbnail in cover view mode in the Library (since I did not sideload one, and can't anyway, due to said lack of ASIN or hash ;p).

For the record:
Shakespeare's Complete Works is a Calibre KF8. With a random UUID as ASIN .
Life on the Mississippi is a KFX book (nearly) straight from Amazon. So, proper ASIN .
Handfast is @dhdurgee's KF8 testcase. NULL ASIN .
Macbeth is a KF8 split with KindleUnpack from a KindleGen dual mobi. NULL ASIN .
Jane Eyre is a KindleGen dual mobi. Old style hash .

----

TL;DR: Save a tree, put an ASIN in your KF8!

----

@dhdurgee: That there's one in the OPF is irrelevant, we're on a Kindle, we don't care about OPF/ePub .
KindleGen will *never* put one in the Mobi metadata, that's what's important here .

TL;DR²: @eschwartz recommended various ways of sanitizing a KF8 for the Kindle, I'd recommend doing that. And, if that's not already the case, it might be an interesting info for Sigil users to know?

[XXCoder]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@XXCoder: That should be available in the system logs.

Is there any guide on how to access such, as well as remote shell and such?



Interesting. I had quite a few pictures that would not work at all. I figured out how to find which simply by removing screensavers that does show up and reset remaining screensavers. After several cycles of this, I could not get any screensaver to show up for total of 22 pictures. They all was properly formatted PNG files of correct size.

I was wondering if there was something odd with those pictures, so I made invisible changes to all of those, and saved again. (ie paint black on black area)

It fixed all of em. Whatever works.