Calibre Converted HTMLZ File Crashes Kindle

[mallomar]

Hi –

A book I downloaded is in the HTMLZ format. I used Calibre to convert it to an AZW3 file and it shows fine in the Calibre Viewer and Kindle for Mac app, however opening it on my Kindle Oasis causes the Kindle to freeze with a force restart the only way to get it working again. After restarting, I deleted the file off of my Kindle through Calibre and used Calibre to convert the HTMLZ to mobi, however the same thing happened, so I went back and deleted that file. Any ideas? The file isn't large or image heavy.

Thanks!

[kovidgoyal]

There is no way to know why the Kindle doesn't like a particular book. Amazon provides no debug logs. Typically is is because of some markup in the book that it cannot handle. You can probably work around it by converting to docx and then back which will have the side effect of sanitizing all markup.

[mallomar]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

There is no way to know why the Kindle doesn't like a particular book. Amazon provides no debug logs. Typically is is because of some markup in the book that it cannot handle. You can probably work around it by converting to docx and then back which will have the side effect of sanitizing all markup.

Thanks so much for the response and your work on Calibre, Kovid! That did the trick and made the book open-able, however the formatting is now completely off and the table of contents are broken. I wonder what's going on with the book and why it was brought in as an HTMLZ, as I got the book directly from Amazon and just wanted to use Calibre to strip the DRM from it. No other book that I've gotten from Amazon has come in as an HTMLZ file. I just went to download it again to make sure it wasn't corrupted the first time and it downloads as TPZ file which Calibre imports as an HTMLZ. When I have Amazon push the version directly from the cloud to my Kindle it shows up fine. I downloaded the file on Kindle for Mac and found it in the folder as mobi. However, when I have Calibre push it to the Kindle as mobi or convert the mobi to an AZW3 and push that the Kindle still hangs and requires a force restart. Something is obviously up with the file itself.

[mallomar]

Okay, further investigation. I had Amazon push the store bought book to the Kindle, where I confirmed again that it functions properly. I then connected the Kindle to Calibre, where it shows the file as AZW1. I added that file to my Calibre, where it then shows up yet again as an HTMLZ. I confirmed this HTMLZ can be read, deleted the store bought book from my Kindle and had Calibre send it to my Kindle, whereupon it converts the file to a mobi before sending it. When I try to open this mobi in my Kindle it again makes the Kindle hang necessitating a forced restart. I guess the only options are to have the DRM version of the book or have a non DRM'd version converted to DOCX and then to mobi or AZW3 that has really broken formatting. Really strange.

[kovidgoyal]

That will be because it is not a normal kindle book but a Topaz (TPZ) file which is a kid of reflowable page-scan format amazon invented, because for some reason they did not want to use tagged PDF. In it individual character glyph images are positioned absolutely on the page, just as in PDF and it suffers from many of the same issues as converting PDF

[mallomar]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

That will be because it is not a normal kindle book but a Topaz (TPZ) file which is a kid of reflowable page-scan format amazon invented, because for some reason they did not want to use tagged PDF. In it individual character glyph images are positioned absolutely on the page, just as in PDF and it suffers from many of the same issues as converting PDF

Got it to work! I sent the mobi that was in the Kindle for Mac file folder (that crashed the Kindle when I tried sending via USB from Calibre) to my send to Kindle email. This file then opened fine on the Kindle. I then added it to my Calibre library, converted to AZW3 so I can have page numbers and used the X-Ray Creator plugin to generate an X-Ray. There are still some weird formatting issues which I guess are relics of the Topaz format, but at least the table of content works and it doesn't crash my Kindle.