Economist Recipe broken? For me at least...

[jwhittin]

Hi,

I've been using the built in Economist recipe for years (I'm a subscriber) but suddenly today it failed. I've upgraded to the latest version and tried both versions of the recipe and still have the same problem. I checked the Economist website and (signed in) could read all articles.

The error message is:

Fetch news from The Economist
Resolved conversion options
calibre version: 2.61.0
{'asciiize': False,
'author_sort': None,
'authors': None,
'base_font_size': 0,
'book_producer': None,
'change_justification': 'original',
'chapter': None,
'chapter_mark': 'pagebreak',
'comments': None,
'cover': None,
'debug_pipeline': None,
'dehyphenate': True,
'delete_blank_paragraphs': True,
'disable_font_rescaling': False,
'dont_download_recipe': False,
'dont_split_on_page_breaks': True,
'duplicate_links_in_toc': False,
'embed_all_fonts': False,
'embed_font_family': None,
'enable_heuristics': False,
'epub_flatten': False,
'epub_inline_toc': False,
'epub_toc_at_end': False,
'expand_css': False,
'extra_css': None,
'extract_to': None,
'filter_css': None,
'fix_indents': True,
'flow_size': 260,
'font_size_mapping': None,
'format_scene_breaks': True,
'html_unwrap_factor': 0.4,
'input_encoding': None,
'input_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.InputProfile object at 0x042AC530>,
'insert_blank_line': False,
'insert_blank_line_size': 0.5,
'insert_metadata': False,
'isbn': None,
'italicize_common_cases': True,
'keep_ligatures': False,
'language': None,
'level1_toc': None,
'level2_toc': None,
'level3_toc': None,
'line_height': 0,
'linearize_tables': False,
'lrf': False,
'margin_bottom': 5.0,
'margin_left': 5.0,
'margin_right': 5.0,
'margin_top': 5.0,
'markup_chapter_headings': True,
'max_toc_links': 50,
'minimum_line_height': 120.0,
'no_chapters_in_toc': False,
'no_default_epub_cover': False,
'no_inline_navbars': False,
'no_svg_cover': False,
'output_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.SonyReaderOutput object at 0x042ACA70>,
'page_breaks_before': None,
'prefer_metadata_cover': False,
'preserve_cover_aspect_ratio': False,
'pretty_print': True,
'pubdate': None,
'publisher': None,
'rating': None,
'read_metadata_from_opf': None,
'remove_fake_margins': True,
'remove_first_image': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing_indent_size': 1.5,
'renumber_headings': True,
'replace_scene_breaks': '',
'search_replace': None,
'series': None,
'series_index': None,
'smarten_punctuation': False,
'sr1_replace': '',
'sr1_search': '',
'sr2_replace': '',
'sr2_search': '',
'sr3_replace': '',
'sr3_search': '',
'start_reading_at': None,
'subset_embedded_fonts': False,
'tags': None,
'test': False,
'timestamp': None,
'title': None,
'title_sort': None,
'toc_filter': None,
'toc_threshold': 6,
'toc_title': None,
'transform_css_rules': None,
'unsmarten_punctuation': False,
'unwrap_lines': True,
'use_auto_toc': False,
'verbose': 2}
InputFormatPlugin: Recipe Input running
Using custom recipe
Python function terminated unexpectedly
Could not find any articles, either the economist.com server is having trouble and you should try later or the website format has changed and the recipe needs to be updated. (Error Code: 1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site.py", line 132, in main
File "site.py", line 109, in run_entry_point
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\ipc\worker.py", line 190, in main
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\convert\gui_conversion.py", line 25, in gui_convert
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plumber.py", line 1060, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\customize\conversion.py", line 241, in __call__
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plugins\recipe_ input.py", line 117, in convert
File "site-packages\calibre\web\feeds\news.py", line 998, in download
File "site-packages\calibre\web\feeds\news.py", line 1163, in build_index
File "<string>", line 78, in parse_index
File "<string>", line 125, in economist_parse_index
Exception: Could not find any articles, either the economist.com server is having trouble and you should try later or the website format has changed and the recipe needs to be updated.

Any idea what the problem could be?

Many thanks

John

[kovidgoyal]

The print edition page is missing its table of contents, see

http://www.economist.com/printedition/2016-07-02

Either this is a temporary problem with the servers or they decided to discontinue it, you will have to wait and see.

[jwhittin]

Many thanks for the fast response and diagnosis Kovid.

I see what you mean - it looks like their website is broken as I can't access the contents of any print edition - not just the current one - on their website. Hopefully they'll fix it up soon.

Thanks again

John

[kovidgoyal]

Since you are a subscriber, you might want to send them a note about it.

[jwhittin]

Done, but knowing their customer service I don't expect any promptness in their response... :-)

[NSILMike]

Related thread is here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=246667

[zsalya]

Thank you for explaining this.
More generally thank you very much Kovid for having set this up.
I have an Economist Print&Digital subscription but it doesn't work for Kindle, and the print version arrives typically only the next Tuesday, so especially when I am travelling, Calibre has been so useful.

[aritafari]

This seems to have been fixed. I successfully downloaded the latest edition of "The Economist" this morning.

[NSILMike]

Originally Posted by aritafari

This seems to have been fixed. I successfully downloaded the latest edition of "The Economist" this morning.

So have I. I wonder if it was the site that was in need of a fix... seems like it, since no one has commented that the recipe has been updated.

[jwhittin]

Seems to be fixed for me too (I'm the OP and in Australia) - but the Economist website is fixed too so suspect that's the reason.

Thanks to Kovid for diagnosing what it was so quickly - I only had to wait for the Economist to fix their website and I was able to use the (unchanged) recipe again.

[jwhittin]

I was just looking at this week's download - it's only 5.5MB when an edition is normally ~10-12. Page numbers look close to normal so wonder why it's so small this week? Perhaps they've changed some more on the website than is apparent...

[NSILMike]

Originally Posted by jwhittin

I was just looking at this week's download - it's only 5.5MB when an edition is normally ~10-12. Page numbers look close to normal so wonder why it's so small this week? Perhaps they've changed some more on the website than is apparent...

Hmmm....for me it is 9.2MB as reported by Calibre, or 9,377KB per windows...

[jwhittin]

Originally Posted by NSILMike

Hmmm....for me it is 9.2MB as reported by Calibre, or 9,377KB per windows...

I've now done it twice more - the first time, a couple of days ago, it was 5.5MB again, today it was 4.4. Each time with 460 pages and not seemingly missing any articles.

Perhaps the difference between yours and mine is regional editions - I'm in Australia so get the Asia Pacific version. But that doesn't explain why it's gone down from 5.5 to 4.4 during the week. Perhaps they've been fiddling with the resolution/quality of the graphics?