Need help with calibre-server

[nqk]

Dear you guys,

I'm using calibre-server to run a synced database on a always-online computer.

calibre-server --with-library "my_library" -p xxxx --auto-reload -t 120

It works. . The server runs fine. But the database file is locked by calibre-server (I think) and can not get updated automatically when the origin is updated (from my laptop). I had to manually stop the script, and the file gets synced.

It is a windows 7 PC. Is there away for the database to be released automatically and get updated? I'm not sure what the "-auto-reload" and -t timeout is for.

[kovidgoyal]

--auto-reload is for development. Since windows locks all open files your only way around is to stop the server, do the syn and start the server. Or use a linux/os x computer to run the server, where there is no locking problem.

[nqk]

Thanks for confirmation. But I have no other machines. Anyway, I set up two windows schedules, which are repeated every hour (maybe longer when I don't edit the database much)
1) Kill calibre-server
(wait 5 minutes for all files to be synced automatically)
2) Run calibre-server.

This means that the server is offline 5 minutes every hour, , but I can live with that.

//
PS: I use Bittorrent Sync, so the sync is quite fast.

[chaley]

What I do is have a script (monit on linux) that watches the timestamp of the calibre database file in the sync'ed folder (dropbox for me). If the timestamp changes then monit runs a script to restart calibre.

My calibre restart script kills calibre, copies the database file to /tmp, sets the environment variable CALIBRE_OVERRIDE_DATABASE_PATH to that new copy, then starts calibre. Total calibre-off time is seconds.

This technique ensures that the database file in the sync folder is open only for as long as it takes to make a copy, reducing sync failures to almost zero. A failure can still happen, but it would require two syncs within the monitoring window of the script.

I don't know what you would use to watch timestamps on a windows system.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by chaley

I don't know what you would use to watch timestamps on a windows system.

I use a program called Watch 4 Folder- the free version is limited to watching one folder/file, the Pay4Me version (USD5.00) can watch 4?

Be careful with the install it has a 'free offer'

BR

[nqk]

In my case watching for timestamp change is not helpful because the metadata.db is locked by existing calibre-server.exe instance and it is not updated by other software (bitsync for me).

I then need to have calibre-server.exe automatically killed (by windows task scheduler), then during the five minutes while calibre-server.exe is not running, the metadata.db file is free for updating (if any), then calibre-server.exe is automatically called for running again (for 55 minutes now).

I know it sounds and is unprofessional and newbie, but that's all I can do. . Please teach me a better alternative. I only have a windows pc

[chaley]

Originally Posted by nqk

In my case watching for timestamp change is not helpful because the metadata.db is locked by existing calibre-server.exe instance and it is not updated by other software (bitsync for me).

I then need to have calibre-server.exe automatically killed (by windows task scheduler), then during the five minutes while calibre-server.exe is not running, the metadata.db file is free for updating (if any), then calibre-server.exe is automatically called for running again (for 55 minutes now).

I know it sounds and is unprofessional and newbie, but that's all I can do. . Please teach me a better alternative. I only have a windows pc

In my post (#4) I told you how to avoid having calibre lock the db.

[nqk]

Thank you all for your responses.

Can I use calibre-server.exe command line to show a certain Virtual Library?

I created a number of virtual libraries and I would like to broadcast each to different ports.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by nqk

Thank you all for your responses.

Can I use calibre-server.exe command line to show a certain Virtual Library?

I created a number of virtual libraries and I would like to broadcast each to different ports.

See the calibre-server documentation at http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/cli/calibre-server.html, and in particular the --restriction argument.

[nqk]

Thank you!