CC beta releases 3.4.4j, 3.4.4k, 3.4.4l

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

I think I have found a way to change the preferences screens so that all titles are black. If I make an APK with the changes, would you have time to try it? If so I will PM you a link.

Thanks in advance.

Some things look ok and some didn't. Under marking books read it has 'groups from custom columns' for both sync column for read and for date read. That doesn't seem like the right text to me.

Ok:
delete book - Not preferences, but I'm pretty sure this had a problem before.
everything under sorting
extra info on the book list - all ok
grouping drawer - all ok
backup cc settings
choose items to display in book details

Not ok:
all covers and thumbnails
Max authors length in book list
sort when groups line is tapped
all under font sizes

Here's a screenprint from thumbnails

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Not ok:
all covers and thumbnails
Max authors length in book list
sort when groups line is tapped
all under font sizes

Here's a screenprint from thumbnails

There isn't an attachment on your post. Regardless, the ones that aren't OK are of ones that should have been fixed. That means my change didn't work. Oh well.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Some things look ok and some didn't. Under marking books read it has 'groups from custom columns' for both sync column for read and for date read. That doesn't seem like the right text to me.

Thanks for noticing it. The text has been wrong since the the beginning of the alpha cycle.

[NetAmigo]

I tried the beta l version. I still cannot access my external SD card. When I go to "choose folder" option, I still have only the two choices at the bottom - up/back and new folder. I do not have the middle choice - go to SD or whatever it is. Since you call for a rooted device to gain the added functionality, I tried again to root my tablet and this time succeded. I have a new tablet straight from China, the Cube Talk8. It runs Android 4.4.2.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by NetAmigo

I tried the beta l version. I still cannot access my external SD card. When I go to "choose folder" option, I still have only the two choices at the bottom - up/back and new folder. I do not have the middle choice - go to SD or whatever it is. Since you call for a rooted device to gain the added functionality, I tried again to root my tablet and this time succeded. I have a new tablet straight from China, the Cube Talk8. It runs Android 4.4.2.

It is extremely difficult to understand what is happening here. I will go through step by step what you should see.

1) Choose the advanced option.


2) Click on the default folder location after having clicked on Book Folders and Extensions


3) Click "Choose folder"


4) Click "Go to folder"


5) Click "browse"


You should see something like the following navigation screen


If this doesn't work than I am out of ideas. We will give you a refund for your CC purchase. Send me a PM with the ID used to buy CC and I will arrange it.

[NetAmigo]

Thanks for giving the detailed photos. I never noticed before the first photo Kitkat option. Once I checked it, everything worked fine by letting me go to the root directory and then navigate to the card through "mnt".

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I don't know if this is new, but I just tried to connect to the content server and it failed - no books showed up and I hit disconnect. The content server problem was me and is now ok. The problem is that when I tapped disconnect and the screen went back to the book list, all covers are gone and title and author are all caps. I went to book details and back hoping that would refresh the display, but it didn't. I exited and when I went back in immediately the covers and regular text were still missing. I exited again and when I went back in after a minute everything finally looked ok again. Here's a screenprint:
Attachment 129486

I just had this same problem again. One thing this time is that I noticed that if I have an external IP address for the content server it won't connect to the content server if I am at home with wifi on - is this new? If I turn wifi off it connects fine. I'll send the debug log again.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I just had this same problem again. One thing this time is that I noticed that if I have an external IP address for the content server it won't connect to the content server if I am at home with wifi on - is this new? If I turn wifi off it connects fine. I'll send the debug log again.

First, are you editing the log, or is what you are sending me all there is?

From what I can see, the root cause of what is happening is that a connection to some IP address is timing out, coupled with (I think) the connection being cancelled while waiting for this timeout. That timeout is several seconds (5, I think). Android requires that network connections be done in a background thread. We chose what is called an AsyncTask, which is easy to use but carries the baggage that there can be only one of them running at once. Painting covers and text in the booklist is also done by AsyncTasks. Thus, until that timeout happens, no covers will paint. Why they *never* paint is a mystery. I would expect that if you went to settings and back, or if you scrolled some distance up or down then they would start painting again.

As for why that timeout on connect is occurring, I can't say. There isn't enough of the log to know what IP address is being used, whether it is a DNS name that is being mistranslated, or whether some other CC option is getting in the way. My suspicion is that the connection wants to loop back through the external IP address of your router to some machine on your local net, and that your router doesn't support loop backs (most do not). If this is the case then you can use the second address section of CC's content server connection box to specify the internal IP address. Or invert them, specifying the internal address in the first section, which might avoid the timeout.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

First, are you editing the log, or is what you are sending me all there is?

From what I can see, the root cause of what is happening is that a connection to some IP address is timing out, coupled with (I think) the connection being cancelled while waiting for this timeout. That timeout is several seconds (5, I think). Android requires that network connections be done in a background thread. We chose what is called an AsyncTask, which is easy to use but carries the baggage that there can be only one of them running at once. Painting covers and text in the booklist is also done by AsyncTasks. Thus, until that timeout happens, no covers will paint. Why they *never* paint is a mystery. I would expect that if you went to settings and back, or if you scrolled some distance up or down then they would start painting again.

As for why that timeout on connect is occurring, I can't say. There isn't enough of the log to know what IP address is being used, whether it is a DNS name that is being mistranslated, or whether some other CC option is getting in the way. My suspicion is that the connection wants to loop back through the external IP address of your router to some machine on your local net, and that your router doesn't support loop backs (most do not). If this is the case then you can use the second address section of CC's content server connection box to specify the internal IP address. Or invert them, specifying the internal address in the first section, which might avoid the timeout.

I rename the log file sometimes because I look at it sometimes and it's too big otherwise. I renamed it just before doing the connect. I've waited much longer than 5 seconds before and the connection still doesn't happen. Why does the connection work if I turn wireless off? I have always had just the external IP address in settings and it's worked before at home with wifi on.

Edit: would it help to also send you Calibre's debug log?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Why does the connection work if I turn wireless off? I have always had just the external IP address in settings and it's worked before at home with wifi on.

Assuming that the server is on your home network and that the external IP address is the ISP-assigned address given your router ...

If you turn off wifi then your device will be talking to your carrier and coming at your router from outside. The router will pass the communication to your internal server, and all is well.

If you are on wifi, then your device will talk to your router but from the wrong side of the router. In order to work, the router must "loop back" the connection, in effect pretending that it came in from outside your network. Most routers are not capable of doing this, and the ones that are often require special setup.

The "normal" way of handing this problem is to have a DNS server inside your network that will hand out the internal IP address for your server to devices inside your network. The outside DNS server will provide the external address.

To avoid this problem, CC provides two network settings for the content server connection. You would put the external IP address in one of them (or a URL or something), and the internal IP address in the other.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

Assuming that the server is on your home network and that the external IP address is the ISP-assigned address given your router ...

If you turn off wifi then your device will be talking to your carrier and coming at your router from outside. The router will pass the communication to your internal server, and all is well.

If you are on wifi, then your device will talk to your router but from the wrong side of the router. In order to work, the router must "loop back" the connection, in effect pretending that it came in from outside your network. Most routers are not capable of doing this, and the ones that are often require special setup.

The "normal" way of handing this problem is to have a DNS server inside your network that will hand out the internal IP address for your server to devices inside your network. The outside DNS server will provide the external address.

To avoid this problem, CC provides two network settings for the content server connection. You would put the external IP address in one of them (or a URL or something), and the internal IP address in the other.

Thanks. I know this used to work. We've had numerous routers and firmware upgrades since I started using CC so at some point the router or DNS server was set up to do this because I didn't use to need the second content server address. My 'tech support' says he never had anything setup differently though.

Is it possible to have the external address specified and have the internal one set to 'automatic' ?

[chaley]

No longer relevant

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Is it possible to have the external address specified and have the internal one set to 'automatic' ?

I just looked at the code, and it does automatically fall back to automatic if the external IP address is not available. That says that something odd is happening in your situation.

Could you attempt to connect with wifi turned on then send me the complete debug log? There are log messages that will help me understand why it seems that one part of CC can see the content server using the external address but another part cannot.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by chaley

I just looked at the code, and it does automatically fall back to automatic if the external IP address is not available. That says that something odd is happening in your situation.

Could you attempt to connect with wifi turned on then send me the complete debug log? There are log messages that will help me understand why it seems that one part of CC can see the content server using the external address but another part cannot.

I also sent a Calibre debug log.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I also sent a Calibre debug log.

The CC debug log is empty.