[Android App] Can't get Calibre Companion to connect

[theangelicious1]

I recently bought Calibre Companion to try and sync books from my Calibre library on my MacBook Pro to my new Nexus 7.

I followed the instructions and the troubleshooting tips, but nothing I do works. Both devices are on the same network, the wireless device connection is enabled in calibre, the IP is entered correctly, and no matter what I try, Calibre Companion says "Failed to connect". I have a simple setup, with no fancy firewalls or anything, and I am fairly tech savvy, but I can not for the life of me figure out why this won't work.

Also, whoever is responsible for creating this app should think about including some sort of setup instructions, a readme file, or some kind of documentation to go along with the app. It can be quite confusing for new users, and there are no instructions to be found from the app or the Google Play page. (At least there were none I could easily find.)

Please advise. Thank you.

[ellett]

Did you read the CC FAQ that's sticky'ed to the top of this forum?

That's where the instructions are, so if you have a specific question or suggestion re installation, post it and it may make it into the FAQ. The CC developers read this forum often and they are quite responsive.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by theangelicious1

I followed the instructions and the troubleshooting tips, but nothing I do works. Both devices are on the same network, the wireless device connection is enabled in calibre, the IP is entered correctly, and no matter what I try, Calibre Companion says "Failed to connect". I have a simple setup, with no fancy firewalls or anything, and I am fairly tech savvy, but I can not for the life of me figure out why this won't work.

The usual problems are:

1) There is a firewall (fancy or not) on the computer running calibre that blocks CC's communication to calibre.
2) The wrong port, usually the one for calibre's content server, is entered into CC.
3) The computer running calibre has multiple IP addresses, and the wrong one is being entered into CC.
4) The computer running calibre is running a VPN (Virtual Private Network) that blocks access from the local wireless segment.

We cannot know if the problem is one of the above or something else.

I suggest that you make a calibre debug log that captures a connection attempt. See the CC Infor & FAQ thread item #4 "I want to help get my problems fixed. What do I do?" for instructions.

Being that you are tech savvy, there is another thing you can do to test connectivity. Make a note of calibre's IP address and CC's port. On your nexus 7, use your web browser to connect to that address/port in the form ipAddress:port, On my machine I type 192.168.0.6:9090. Wait around a minute and you should see something beginning with text like "591[9, {"validExtensions": ["lrf", "rar", "zip",". In addition, you will see something like the following in calibre's debug log.

SMART_DEV ( 372.31:299.969) reset
SMART_DEV ( 372.33:  0.000) set_progress_reporter
SMART_DEV ( 372.34:  0.000) open
SMART_DEV ( 372.42:  0.063) _call_client GET_INITIALIZATION_INFO wfr True
SMART_DEV ( 432.47: 60.031) _receive_from_client timeout communicating with device

If your browser says that it cannot connect or if you do not see the text (after a minute), then one of the following must be true:

• The IP address you used is not assigned to the computer running calibre
• The port number is not the one the calibre is using
• The nexus 7 cannot talk to the local network
• calibre cannot talk to the local network.
• calibre and the nexus are not on the same local network. Assuming your setup is using 192.168 addresses, the first three digit groups of calibre's and the nexus 7's IP addresses must be identical. A very few home routers exist that use separate sub-networks for wireless and wired, something that will prevent the two networks from communicating easily.
• your wireless router is refusing to pass messages between machines on the same local network. We have seen this in one instance, set up as a "security measure".

Note that neither calibre nor our app can work around any of the above problems. Fortunately for the world at large, they are rare. Unfortunately, you might have one of them.

Also, whoever is responsible for creating this app should think about including some sort of setup instructions, a readme file, or some kind of documentation to go along with the app. It can be quite confusing for new users, and there are no instructions to be found from the app or the Google Play page. (At least there were none I could easily find.)

Please advise. Thank you.

As ellett pointed out, you can find a lot of information in the post at the top of this forum Calibre Companion Beta: Information, Change Log, and FAQ.