lost books

[Love2Read_Books]

I have been enjoying using Calibre to edit my e-books very much, but I have recently lost three books in the middle of editing.

This is the error message that I am getting:

calibre, version 2.35.0
ERROR: Failed to open book: Failed to open book, click Show details for more information.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\tweak_book\job.py", line 34, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\tweak_book\boss.py", line 56, in get_container
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\polish\container.py", line 1258, in get_container
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\polish\container.py", line 958, in __init__
InvalidEpub: No META-INF/container.xml in epub

I regularly save my work to the original file and it has been working well for over 100 books. now this.

Can anyone help as to why it happens and how I can prevent it happening again?

[theducks]

That says the EPUB (structure) was damaged.
Was the book open in more than 1 place at the same time?
Where was the book being stored (drive type/ location)?

[Love2Read_Books]

I usually have the books I'm working on open in the e-book viewer to see what they will look like in my reader. I use the file preview, but it doesn't give me quite the same perspective. My files are stored on my hard drive C:\...Documents\My eBooks\Loaded to Kindle ... each author and series has their own folder. I only open one iteration of the editor at a time.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Love2Read_Books

I usually have the books I'm working on open in the e-book viewer to see what they will look like in my reader. I use the file preview, but it doesn't give me quite the same perspective. My files are stored on my hard drive C:\...Documents\My eBooks\Loaded to Kindle ... each author and series has their own folder. I only open one iteration of the editor at a time.

I do the similar. I do not have my Viewer set to bookmark, if that makes a difference.

[Love2Read_Books]

Apparently I do have bookmarks on in the viewer; but, why would that affect the saving of the books and/or loss of the meta-inf containter?

[Love2Read_Books]

... also the three books lost, were interspersed with successful edits and saves.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Love2Read_Books

Apparently I do have bookmarks on in the viewer; but, why would that affect the saving of the books and/or loss of the meta-inf containter?

because may write that out when the viewer closes. Be sure to close the viewer before final save and see if that helps.

[kovidgoyal]

Turn off the option in the viewer preferences to keep a copy of the bookmarks current page position in the ebook file. If that option is on then you will have two programs writing to the file at the same time, which might cause the problem, although since you are on windows, the file is auto-locked and so it should not be possible for simulateous access anyway.

More likely you have some thing else going on. From your description I'd guess the file was corrupted between the time you closed the editor and then re-opened it.

[Love2Read_Books]

Okay, Thanks. It occurred to me that I had my Kindle hooked up to the computer at the same time charging (not turned on) would that be an influence?

BTW. Thanks Kovid for offering this wonderful software, I've told all my bookish friends (and anyone else who would listen). It is nothing short of fabulous.

[theducks]

I would like to address your reason for using the Viewer.
Why? There is little difference (see attached Singe screen capture ).

Note: I do have a 2nd monitor and I also detach the preview, but other than the need to toggle the preview on or off, this should work just fine on a single display

[Love2Read_Books]

There is a discernable difference in the appearance of the text/formatting between the preview pane and the viewer. What looks good in the preview (e..g. the style of font, the amount and placement of white space) fonts sometimes show up as being too extreme or too light; and the same with white space. Mostly I use the preview. Remember I have processed over 100 e-books and only had a problem with 3 of them (at widely different times; the first was several months ago - about 20 e-books, the second was maybe a dozen books later, and the last is the one I am currently working on). All three required massive correction and reformatting of text.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Love2Read_Books

There is a discernable difference in the appearance of the text/formatting between the preview pane and the viewer. What looks good in the preview (e..g. the style of font, the amount and placement of white space) fonts sometimes show up as being too extreme or too light; and the same with white space. Mostly I use the preview. Remember I have processed over 100 e-books and only had a problem with 3 of them (at widely different times; the first was several months ago - about 20 e-books, the second was maybe a dozen books later, and the last is the one I am currently working on). All three required massive correction and reformatting of text.

You must be formatting for personal use on a dedicated device.

Preview should be fine for Placement (proportion) of a text novel (no charts or diagrams...).

Reflow, system (device) supplied fonts/layout, screen size and orientation will tend to fight with your wishes on other users devices (books intended for distribution).

Something that does not work in preview, probably won't work on most devices.

OTOH Just because Preview/Viewer looks great, it might fail on a device (preview/viewer are very forgiving)

[Love2Read_Books]

Yes, This is just a personal hobby for me. I'm pretty OCD when it comes to proofreader/typo errors. And some of the e-books I've acquired were apparently converted from .doc, .txt, or .pdf; so the formatting is pretty much a mess, making me crazy when I try to read the books.

The good news is, I have re-edited the book this discussion is about and so far no glitches.

I will let you know if this problem re-occurs; but, I have implemented all the changes that have been suggested.

Thanks so very much for the help.

[Love2Read_Books]

Just lost the last book I was working on. I spent a great deal of time fixing the myriad flaws, saved, closed out and when I went to open in the ebook viewer ... just gone with the message that it was not a valid epub. Just like before.

calibre, version 2.35.0
ERROR: Failed to open book: Failed to open book, click Show details for more information.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\tweak_book\job.py", line 34, in run
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\tweak_book\boss.py", line 56, in get_container
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\polish\container.py", line 1258, in get_container
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\polish\container.py", line 958, in __init__
InvalidEpub: No META-INF/container.xml in epub


I did have my browser open (to find correct spellings) and there were a steady and annoying stream of video ads. Also I plugged in my Kindle to access the notes I had made while reading.
Any thoughts?

[Phssthpok]

Originally Posted by theducks

I would like to address your reason for using the Viewer.
Why? There is little difference (see attached Singe screen capture ).

I sometimes use the viewer in parallel with the editor, so that if I'm in a modal dialog inside the editor (e.g. the ToC tool) I can still search for text elsewhere in the book for use in the dialog; or to compare how the book looked before a change to after the change (before saving from the editor).