Error communicating with device

[nilis]

Hello, I need some help solving a communication problem with my prs-650. As soon as I connect the prs 650 calibre shows a message stating:

"Error communicating with device"

and if I open the show details message it says:

The SONY database at /Volumes/NO NAME/Sony Reader/database/cache.xml is corrupted. Try disconnecting and reconnecting your reader.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 67, in run
File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 287, in _books
File "site-packages/calibre/devices/prs505/driver.py", line 134, in books
File "site-packages/calibre/devices/prs505/driver.py", line 129, in initialize_XML_cache
File "site-packages/calibre/devices/prs505/sony_cache.py", line 94, in __init__
Exception: The SONY database at /Volumes/NO NAME/Sony Reader/database/cache.xml is corrupted. Try disconnecting and reconnecting your reader.


If you know how to solve this problem, please help.

P.S I am using mac osx 10.5.8 and my books are stored in a SD 16GB card.

Thanks

Nilis

[chaley]

Some more information will be helpful.

Did you try disconnecting your reader, waiting for it to display its menus, and then reconnecting it?

What version of calibre are you running?

Are there books on the card? If so, what did you use to get them there?

Can you see the card's contents properly using a file explorer?

[nilis]

Hi, chaley

I imported the e-books using calibre, after formating the card on the reader , I managed to open the books normally on the reader after that. But when I reconnect the reader to the computer to upload more books using Calibre, the error message appeared. I can view the content of the card normally on the file explorer, there is no physical damage on the card, I guess it is a problem of conflict between calibre and the prs 650 regarding the "media.xml" file. After ejecting the reader form calibre and relaunching the reader, a error message appeared on the reader stating a similar problem of not being able to read the book list on the card. I have the latest version of calibre. What could be the solution? Is the reader expecting a "media.xml" written by the sony library? and therefore conflicting with the calibre meta data? No idea, just guessing... Please help this is annoying, I dont want to be forced to use the sony library, I have to many books neatly organized on calibre.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by nilis

I guess it is a problem of conflict between calibre and the prs 650 regarding the "media.xml" file.

We don't know this yet. There are many people using a 650, so I doubt that there is any fundamental conflict between calibre and a 650. The fact that it worked for a while is evidence of that.

After ejecting the reader form calibre and relaunching the reader, a error message appeared on the reader stating a similar problem of not being able to read the book list on the card.

What did you do when you got this message? What did the reader do?

If your reader is sitting there unusable because of the 'similar problem', then I suggest that you plug in the reader *without calibre running*, delete the media.xml file, and unplug the reader. At that point the reader will scan all the books on the library and rebuild a good media.xml file.

If the reader has already rebuilt the file and calibre still can't see it, then I would take the same steps -- delete the media.xml file. You will lose all collections and bookmarks, and also annotations (I think).

[nilis]

So... I deleted the media.xml file from the internal memory of the reader and restarted it... the problem persisted, the reader was not able to get the list of changes from the xml file, the file seems to be corrupted. So I formated the main memory of the reader, after that the reader was able to create a healthy media.xml file with all the information regarding the 16GB SD card. All books where there. So I connected the reader to the PC (mac OSX 10.5.8) and launched Calibre. Calibre worked hard for 2 or 3 minutes to get the list of books from the reader and finally crashed, I repeated this 3 or 4 times and Calibre crashed hopelessly. I have all the books in the SD card, but calibre is not able to read it, even with a healthy .xml file. Maybe the calibre metadata gets in conflict with the xml file... I also noted that calibre creates 2 metadata files one on the main memory and one on the SD card... Is this normal? I will start from scratch, initialize the SD card, and do a completely new upload to the clean SD card.

I will get back as soon as the problem reappears... It seems to me that after doing the first upload of books to the reader, the xml file gets corrupted...

thanks

[chaley]

Originally Posted by nilis

So... I deleted the media.xml file from the internal memory of the reader and restarted it... the problem persisted, the reader was not able to get the list of changes from the xml file, the file seems to be corrupted. So I formated the main memory of the reader, after that the reader was able to create a healthy media.xml file with all the information regarding the 16GB SD card. All books where there. So I connected the reader to the PC (mac OSX 10.5.8) and launched Calibre. Calibre worked hard for 2 or 3 minutes to get the list of books from the reader and finally crashed, I repeated this 3 or 4 times and Calibre crashed hopelessly. I have all the books in the SD card, but calibre is not able to read it, even with a healthy .xml file. Maybe the calibre metadata gets in conflict with the xml file... I also noted that calibre creates 2 metadata files one on the main memory and one on the SD card... Is this normal? I will start from scratch, initialize the SD card, and do a completely new upload to the clean SD card.

I will get back as soon as the problem reappears... It seems to me that after doing the first upload of books to the reader, the xml file gets corrupted...

thanks

There is an xml file on the card as well, called cache.xml.

Yes, it is normal that calibre creates to metadata.cache files.

Calibre crashing is not normal.

As I said, I doubt that calibre is systemically corrupting the xml file, unless your 650 is different from the others that work just fine. That said, I can't help you any further, because I don't own a 650 and I can't touch yours to see if your memory card is bad or your 650 is bad.

NB: a faulty memory card is well within the realm of possibility. Try putting the books into the Sony's main memory. It will use the same XML format as the card. If it works there, then a giant finger of doom is pointing at your SD card.

Good luck.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by nilis

File "site-packages/calibre/devices/prs505/sony_cache.py", line 94, in __init__
Exception: The SONY database at /Volumes/NO NAME/Sony Reader/database/cache.xml is corrupted. Try disconnecting and reconnecting your reader.

If you're going try deleting a file it should be the one listed in the error message not the media.xml.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by dwanthny

If you're going try deleting a file it should be the one listed in the error message not the media.xml.

Thanks for pointing this out. It was my fault. I was in robotype mode and entered the name of the file in main memory. Sigh...