[GUI Plugin] FanFicFare

[steltek]

Originally Posted by Ealdwulf

I ran the debug and it was still not finding anything... so as I was preparing to paste a really long post that had a fairly short debug file, as well as what about:cache reports and, once again, the relevant parts of my personal.ini (defaults and www.fanfiction.net); when I found the blasted problem.

Rather than just the first couple of lines in the defaults section where the browser_cache_path line was located, I was going to put all of it without the instructions and notes, just the settings whether they were commented out or not.

apparently at some point I had tried to work with browser_cache_path in the past (it had to have been on calibre 4.x) and had a second browser_cache_path line... one that was the same, but missing the \cache2 at the end...

so, FFF was a good program that read the configuration file and saw variable browser_cache_path was the correct path but then as it continued reading it saw the same variable and promptly overwrote what it had in place originally.

likely would not have been an issue if the second entry had also had the correct path, but since it didn't...

needless to say, getting rid of the duplicate entry and making sure that the correct path is in place, allowed it to read tthe cache properly. Yay! It didn't seem to think the web site was newer though even though the fic was just updated a week ago or so with a new chapter published and my entry was from more than a moth back. I did get it to update, I just had to select "overwrite always" instead of "overwrite if newer".

so, for funky stuff that is occurring, let this be a lesson. make sure you don't have multiple lines in the personal.ini that duplicate with the last one being wrong

Always the simple things. Sometimes, you get too close to a problem and the solution just flies over your head while sitting right in front of you...

Glad you got it working!

[Bluesnowan]

So been a longtime reader and new user of calibre and FFF for a few years been using first ffnet downloader then webtoepub and then usually converting to mobi having thousands of fics downloaded. Is there and way for FFF plugin in Calibre to add the metadata?

I have read it and figure I must be doing something wrong as when I click it, it says no story url found even though I open it and it there on the first page. I have been having the cloudfair issue and will be trying those fixes for downloading.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by watani

Just for completeness, what I do to replace the epub cover is to use Edit Metadata -> Change Cover -> Browse option in Calibre. I have verified (using Edit Book in Calibre) that doing this also changes the cover image inside the epub.

I fully expect that is your problem right there.

You've just changed the cover in Calibre but not in the epub.

I bet that if you look in Edit Book Preferences > Integration with Calibre you have Update Embedded Metadata on Open checked on; which is masking that fact from you.

For many purposes, this works fine--Calibre by default updates embedded metadata (including cover) when sending to devices or exporting/saving outside Calibre.

But FFF works on the raw epub. Use Calibre's Polish Book or the Modify Epub plugin to update the cover inside the epub when you manually set it.

Originally Posted by Ealdwulf

apparently at some point I had tried to work with browser_cache_path in the past (it had to have been on calibre 4.x) and had a second browser_cache_path line... one that was the same, but missing the \cache2 at the end...

I don't know any programmers who haven't been bitten by something similar at some point. Just glad you found it.

Originally Posted by Bluesnowan

So been a longtime reader and new user of calibre and FFF for a few years been using first ffnet downloader then webtoepub and then usually converting to mobi having thousands of fics downloaded. Is there and way for FFF plugin in Calibre to add the metadata?

If you kept the epubs, there's an option in FFF's Config for 'Search inside EPUB for Story URL" (Basic tab, left column, middle section, bottom option).

But FFF can't read a mobi file the same way.

I just tried converting a WebToEpub epub to mobi then back to epub. The story URL in metadata is lost and WebToEpub doesn't include the story URL as a link. FFF searches for <a href=""> links--searching for plain text URLs isn't done in epub.

However, if you instead convert the mobi to txt (and there isn't an epub), FFF will find the text story URL in the txt file.

You've honestly picked a pretty terrible time to try and add FFF to your ffnet reading experience; what with the cloudflare blocking. And I don't know when or if it will ever go back to 'normal'.

[Bluesnowan]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

I fully expect that is your problem right there.

You've just changed the cover in Calibre but not in the epub.

I bet that if you look in Edit Book Preferences > Integration with Calibre you have Update Embedded Metadata on Open checked on; which is masking that fact from you.

For many purposes, this works fine--Calibre by default updates embedded metadata (including cover) when sending to devices or exporting/saving outside Calibre.

But FFF works on the raw epub. Use Calibre's Polish Book or the Modify Epub plugin to update the cover inside the epub when you manually set it.



I don't know any programmers who haven't been bitten by something similar at some point. Just glad you found it.



If you kept the epubs, there's an option in FFF's Config for 'Search inside EPUB for Story URL" (Basic tab, left column, middle section, bottom option).

But FFF can't read a mobi file the same way.

I just tried converting a WebToEpub epub to mobi then back to epub. The story URL in metadata is lost and WebToEpub doesn't include the story URL as a link. FFF searches for <a href=""> links--searching for plain text URLs isn't done in epub.

However, if you instead convert the mobi to txt (and there isn't an epub), FFF will find the text story URL in the txt file.

You've honestly picked a pretty terrible time to try and add FFF to your ffnet reading experience; what with the cloudflare blocking. And I don't know when or if it will ever go back to 'normal'.

Ehh I still read mostly on the site itself but I like backing up fics I like or long ones for ease of reading. I still have the epubs I tend not to get rid of any files. I switched to Calibre over the weekend when I found out the 3 days I spent organizing all my thousands of ebooks on my Kindle for pc was worthless as there was no way I could find to export or copy them. Main reason I like mobi is that was my first e-reader before kindle was a thing.

[Zerubel]

Small update, the browser cache fix for ffnet works for me (Hallelujah!) but does not work on updating an anthology - i get "Key Error, All Metadata" which I guess means it wants me to go open all the other fics in the anthology, perhaps. It doesn't update the story. However, I was able to download a new separate copy of the latest story, and since ao3's anthology/series is more "robust" anyway, I will just wait for this version of the story to finish before bundling it into the anthology with the others.

Thank you for all your hard work with this plugin!!!

[ownedbycats]

If I recall correctly, anthologies use Jim's other plugin EpubMerge and is compatible with that. It'll probably mess up the Calibre library's internal ID numbers (if that's important to you), but I think you should be able to use EpubMerge to split apart the stories to update them individually before merging them back together.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

If I recall correctly, anthologies use Jim's other plugin EpubMerge and is compatible with that. It'll probably mess up the Calibre library's internal ID numbers (if that's important to you), but I think you should be able to use EpubMerge to split apart the stories to update them individually before merging them back together.

EpubSplit to split anthologies/omnibuses.

[ownedbycats]

EpubMerge has an "unmerge epub" option though and it does break apart anthologies; I did it once by mistake.

[Atherton25]

Originally Posted by Bluesnowan

Main reason I like mobi is that was my first e-reader before kindle was a thing.

Read on PDAs?
I read a LOT on old iPAQ PDAs ~2001-2009(?) then moved to iPhone for a while. Was reading in mobi before kindle owned the rights to the mobi format (MobiPocket was the original software that worked on WindowsCE), that and lit file format (Microsoft's long abandoned eBook format).

A lot of my oldest fanfiction I have are in lit format somewhere as backups, even though (hopefully) it's all been long imported into calibre, which I started using in the VERY early days. like mid 2007? Wow, it's been a long time.

I *almost* had bought a Sony e-reader, but never did. Not sure what their format was. I still have a couple of iPAQs sitting around that I had when I moved to my kindle. Heck, I'd still have my old Kindles if it weren't for Amazon's trade-in program that gave like 15% or 20% off new kindles.

[JimmXinu]

UnMerge -> Update -> Merge is basically how FFF Anthologies work. FFF then accumulates the metadata, like summing up numWords.

But for basic anthology functionality, manually doing UnMerge -> Update -> Merge results in practically the same output epub.

[MCBastos]

A month or so ago I added a bunch of stories from FanFiction.net, many of them still "in-progress." FFF downloaded all of them with no problems.

Today I tried to update one of those stories, which had got an additional chapter in the meantime. No success. I checked the log and found an error message saying:
cloudscraper reports: "Detected a Cloudflare version 2 Captcha challenge, This feature is not available...."
I understand this is not a FFF bug, it's a security feature in FF.net that is hobbling FFF. Is there any way to work around it? I tried to add my FF.net login to the personal.ini but it doesn't seem to have made any difference.

[Atherton25]

/sigh
Jimm... maybe you should put a HUGE image under your signature that says 'GO HERE if you get a FF.Net CLOUDFLARE Message' as well as on the front page. I mean... at some point they're just going to get completely ignored and then get angry about it.

[steltek]

Originally Posted by MCBastos

A month or so ago I added a bunch of stories from FanFiction.net, many of them still "in-progress." FFF downloaded all of them with no problems.

Today I tried to update one of those stories, which had got an additional chapter in the meantime. No success. I checked the log and found an error message saying:
cloudscraper reports: "Detected a Cloudflare version 2 Captcha challenge, This feature is not available...."
I understand this is not a FFF bug, it's a security feature in FF.net that is hobbling FFF. Is there any way to work around it? I tried to add my FF.net login to the personal.ini but it doesn't seem to have made any difference.

See the following item in the FanFictionFare FAQ:

Why am I having errors downloading from fanfiction.net? / Why am I getting 'Cloudflare' errors downloading from fanfiction.net?

There is no FFF workaround with this other than the browser cache feature referenced in the FAQ.

If you want a fuller understanding of the issue, you can read back through the last 70-100 pages of board postings preceding this one as the issue has been literally discussed to death multiple times.

[Philosophize]

Originally Posted by steltek

Out of curiosity, Philosophize, what do you get if you enter aboutrofiles in the Firefox URL bar and hit enter? Does it show multiple user profiles? And, which one does it currently show as being in use?

There are two: default-release and default

I would have only expected one, default, and it says that the first (default-release) is the one in use. That is also the cache directory I'm using.

Is this normal/expected, or does this suggest a problem?

I only installed Firefox as a means for trying to get FFF to work and the only plugin is WebtoEpub, and that was only about a month ago now. So if any sort of corruption has creeped in, it happened really fast.

[Bluesnowan]

Every time I use the plugin it asks me to configure custom columns I click ok. And since I am new to calibre and don't want to screw anything up I don't change anything. but it asks me each time what am I doing wrong?