EPUB constantly rejected by Amazon

FacetiousKnave · 01-17-2024, 09:24 PM

So, I have a 20 mb EPUB that can be opened with Calibre, Sigil, and iBooks without any problem.

However, when I send it to my Kindle via the 'Send to Kindle' website, there is always an error in the internal Amazon conversion process.

I have tried converting the book with Calibre in multiple ocasions: from EPUB to MOBI, and then from MOBI to EPUB, etc, but the result is always the same: Amazon rejects the book.

To identify the error, I attempted to open the file with Kindle Previewer 3 and received the following message:

Code:

Type,"Description"
Error,"E24010: Hyperlink not resolved in toc (One possible reason can be that the link points to a tag with style display:none):/private/var/folders/0m/twgjxfd14n314ytm3p03x0fm0000gn/T/56cbc7d0-1984-467f-8e94-ef4b03ab3400/cTemp/mTemp/mobi-h40ikQ/OEBPS/xhtml/01_TitlePage.html#","","","",""
Error,"E24001: The table of contents could not be built.","","","",""
Status,"Book conversion failed."

Can anyone explain what I should modify exactly so that Amazon can convert the EPUB properly?

kovidgoyal · 01-17-2024, 09:43 PM

Convert to azw3 in calibre and send to your kindle via usb, no sense in fighting amazon.

DNSB · 01-17-2024, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FacetiousKnave

So, I have a 20 mb EPUB that can be opened with Calibre, Sigil, and iBooks without any problem.

When you open the ePub in Sigil or calibre's e-book editor and run epubcheck on it, do you receive any error messages?

FacetiousKnave · 01-17-2024, 10:05 PM

It's just so weird.

I ran a bug scan with Calibre and it fixed the issue. Then Amazon rejected the file.

I rewrote the entire TOC with Sigil. Then Amazon rejected the file.

Kindle Previewer is already able to open it, yet Amazon rejects the file!

I'll have to use the USB method as you suggest.

FacetiousKnave · 01-17-2024, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

When you open the ePub in Sigil or calibre's e-book editor and run epubcheck on it, do you receive any error messages?

When I initially opened the file with Sigil it said there was an issue

Quote:

This EPUB has HTML files that are not well
formed or are missing a DOCTYPE,html,
head or body elements.Sigil can
automatically fix these files, although this
may very rarely result in minor data loss in
extreme circumstances.
Do you want to automatically fix the files?

Now, the thing is, this happens with virtually every single book I convert with Calibre, and yet these books can be sent to Amazon Kindle without any issue. Only in very rare cases such as this Amazon refuses to convert a particular ebook.

Additionally, even after Sigil ran the bug check and fixed whatever it found, Amazon still cannot convert the epub.

DNSB · 01-17-2024, 10:19 PM

That is mostly since Kovid does not like adding the .DOCTYPE for unknown reasons and the cover generation/insertion routine does not add the required lines for an ePub 2 file. The first code block is what calibre uses, the second code block is what Sigil modifies it to for ePub 2 and the third block is Sigil modifies it to for ePub 3. For me, it's not worth the time and effort to argue about this, I just use Sigil to modify the code.

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
    <head>

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html>

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops">
<head>

The other item is if you should be using epubcheck not the built in checker in both Sigil and calibre. If an ePub passes epubcheck, most publishers will accept it otherwise they tend to bounce for any reported error.

KevinH · 01-17-2024, 10:20 PM

Sigil differs from Calibre in its interpretation of the epub3 spec about the need for doctype tags, especially for epub2 epubs that use named entities. Calibre interprets the spec differently saying these are optional.

But having a proper doctype can not hurt so Sigil offers to fix that for you. But I doubt very much that this is in any way related to your rejection by Amazon at all.

Try running your epub through the epubcheck plugin and fixing any issues it detects.

The read up on the kindle guidelines to make sure you are not using things unsupported in kindle.

FacetiousKnave · 01-17-2024, 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

That is mostly since Kovid does not like adding the .DOCTYPE for unknown reasons and the cover generation/insertion routine does not add the required lines for an ePub 2 file. The first code block is what calibre uses, the second code block is what Sigil modifies it to for ePub 2 and the third block is Sigil modifies it to for ePub 3. For me, it's not worth the time and effort to argue about this, I just use Sigil to modify the code.

Code:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
    <head>

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html>

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops">
<head>

The other item is if you should be using epubcheck not the built in checker in both Sigil and calibre. If an ePub passes epubcheck, most publishers will accept it otherwise they tend to bounce for any reported error.

Thank you, but I still think that is not the issue. I'll tell you why: even after Sigil made those amendments and included the <!DOCTYPE html>, Amazon was still rejecting the file.

However, something curious happened a minute ago. I sent the unmodified epubs to my phone with AirDrop and then sent them to Kindle. They went straight to the Amazon cloud without any issue.

The bottom line of all this is: I do not have a clue what could be causing the rejection of the ebooks.

Sirtel · 01-18-2024, 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FacetiousKnave

The bottom line of all this is: I do not have a clue what could be causing the rejection of the ebooks.

No one does.

pdurrant · 01-18-2024, 02:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FacetiousKnave

The bottom line of all this is: I do not have a clue what could be causing the rejection of the ebooks.

Have you run epubcheck on your ePub?

DNSB · 01-18-2024, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FacetiousKnave

The bottom line of all this is: I do not have a clue what could be causing the rejection of the ebooks.

A while back when Amazon first started allowing ePub to be sent to Kindle, quite a few people were complaining about rejected submissions. I looked at a fair number of scrambled ebooks and very few of them passed epubcheck. The ones that did pass epubcheck had items such as ToC entries pointing at an tag with display: none, pointing to an ID in the <body> tag, pointing at IDs that were incorrectly formatted (the invalid XML name error) or pointing at nothing in particular. Then there were a couple where nothing seemed to be wrong and I ended up having to click on every link to see if it worked.

DiapDealer · 01-18-2024, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FacetiousKnave

Additionally, even after Sigil ran the bug check and fixed whatever it found, Amazon still cannot convert the epub.

Sigil doesn't have an inherent "bug check" for epubs. It can validate/correct some xhtml (and can check your css if you tell it to), but if you want to see if your epub is actually valid according to the epub spec, you'll want to install a validation plugin (like epubcheck that many people have been mentioning).

FacetiousKnave · 01-18-2024, 02:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Sigil doesn't have an inherent "bug check" for epubs. It can validate/correct some xhtml (and can check your css if you tell it to), but if you want to see if your epub is actually valid according to the epub spec, you'll want to install a validation plugin (like epubcheck that many people have been mentioning).

Is there an updated or newer version of that plugin or is it still the same from 2014

DNSB · 01-18-2024, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FacetiousKnave

Is there an updated or newer version of that plugin or is it still the same from 2014

The link in that thread is to the updated version from Feb, 2023. Please note that the plugin installer no longer included the epubcheck files and they will be downloaded on first run.

JSWolf · 01-18-2024, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FacetiousKnave

Is there an updated or newer version of that plugin or is it still the same from 2014

The plugin was last updated February 3, 2023. Also, if there is a new version of epubcheck, you will be asked if you want to download it.

01-17-2024, 09:24 PM	#1
FacetiousKnave Unconscionable Posts: 76 Karma: 20000 Join Date: Sep 2022 Location: Helsinki Device: Kindle	EPUB constantly rejected by Amazon So, I have a 20 mb EPUB that can be opened with Calibre, Sigil, and iBooks without any problem. However, when I send it to my Kindle via the 'Send to Kindle' website, there is always an error in the internal Amazon conversion process. I have tried converting the book with Calibre in multiple ocasions: from EPUB to MOBI, and then from MOBI to EPUB, etc, but the result is always the same: Amazon rejects the book. To identify the error, I attempted to open the file with Kindle Previewer 3 and received the following message: Code: Type,"Description" Error,"E24010: Hyperlink not resolved in toc (One possible reason can be that the link points to a tag with style display:none):/private/var/folders/0m/twgjxfd14n314ytm3p03x0fm0000gn/T/56cbc7d0-1984-467f-8e94-ef4b03ab3400/cTemp/mTemp/mobi-h40ikQ/OEBPS/xhtml/01_TitlePage.html#","","","","" Error,"E24001: The table of contents could not be built.","","","","" Status,"Book conversion failed." Can anyone explain what I should modify exactly so that Amazon can convert the EPUB properly?

01-17-2024, 10:19 PM	#6
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 35,464 Karma: 145525534 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Forma, Clara HD, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	That is mostly since Kovid does not like adding the .DOCTYPE for unknown reasons and the cover generation/insertion routine does not add the required lines for an ePub 2 file. The first code block is what calibre uses, the second code block is what Sigil modifies it to for ePub 2 and the third block is Sigil modifies it to for ePub 3. For me, it's not worth the time and effort to argue about this, I just use Sigil to modify the code. Code: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"> <head> Code: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"> <head> Code: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops"> <head> The other item is if you should be using epubcheck not the built in checker in both Sigil and calibre. If an ePub passes epubcheck, most publishers will accept it otherwise they tend to bounce for any reported error. Last edited by DNSB; 01-17-2024 at 10:22 PM.

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01-17-2024, 09:43 PM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,860 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Convert to azw3 in calibre and send to your kindle via usb, no sense in fighting amazon.

01-17-2024, 10:05 PM	#4
FacetiousKnave Unconscionable Posts: 76 Karma: 20000 Join Date: Sep 2022 Location: Helsinki Device: Kindle	It's just so weird. I ran a bug scan with Calibre and it fixed the issue. Then Amazon rejected the file. I rewrote the entire TOC with Sigil. Then Amazon rejected the file. Kindle Previewer is already able to open it, yet Amazon rejects the file! I'll have to use the USB method as you suggest.

01-17-2024, 10:20 PM	#7
KevinH Sigil Developer Posts: 7,645 Karma: 5433388 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: many	Sigil differs from Calibre in its interpretation of the epub3 spec about the need for doctype tags, especially for epub2 epubs that use named entities. Calibre interprets the spec differently saying these are optional. But having a proper doctype can not hurt so Sigil offers to fix that for you. But I doubt very much that this is in any way related to your rejection by Amazon at all. Try running your epub through the epubcheck plugin and fixing any issues it detects. The read up on the kindle guidelines to make sure you are not using things unsupported in kindle.

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