New Books not Showing Up on Calibre Server

[jvorzimmer]

Since upgrading to Calibre 6.25 new books have stopped appearing on the Calibre Web Server and on Calibre Companion. It started with deleted books not going away on Calibre Server. Then, when I tried to add the same books back they would show up in the Calibre progam but could not be accessed externally.

Since I create ebooks for a living and rely on Calibre to build and publish them, I am at a standstill. Should I downgrade? I have a feeling this has something to do with the Trash Bin feature.

Any Help Would be Greatly Appreciated!
Jeff

[Quoth]

I use USB. Very reliable. The Kobo then charges while I do something else.

[JSWolf]

Calibre Companion is not supported and works rather poorly.

[theducks]

IMHO Avoid CC (don't allow auto upgrade). The last Multipie version was the last reliable version.
The new owner tried to turn it into a subscription product, but couldn't even keep the old way running.

It has been abandon for over a year.

Use a standard WEB browser to see if the server has the books you think are missing.

[jvorzimmer]

Originally Posted by theducks

IMHO Avoid CC (don't allow auto upgrade). The last Multipie version was the last reliable version.

That's exactly what I have, still works great, but the problem is definitely not CC, since I don't see new books in whatever I use to access the Calibre Server whether it be Edge, Chrome or Firefox and over the net or locally to 127.0.0.1.

Wireless seems to be working, but often I'm working remotely, so wireless or USB connection is not always an option.

[theducks]

Are you sure your Calibre Server is using the same Library (folder) and not a out of date mirror?
How are you starting the Server? Via the GUI or by the command line?

[jvorzimmer]

Originally Posted by theducks

Are you sure your Calibre Server is using the same Library (folder) and not a out of date mirror?

I thought of that first, since the drive is mirrored, but the mirror is now three days old. I stopped the nightly backups when I noticed that something was amiss. I double-checked the location as well under Calibre>Choose Your Library. Still points to the C: Drive.

Originally Posted by theducks

How are you starting the Server? Via the GUI or by the command line?

I've tried both ways, command line to specify the server.

I've also cleared the caches on all my devices, as well as the Calibre cache.

I'm beginning to think this is a bug in the "Trash-Bin" feature because when I delete an existing book, it still shows up one the server (minus a cover) and cannot be downloaded.

I'm starting to panic a bit since this is my livelyhood, creating ebooks, and this has been a system that's worked flawlessly for seven years.

[theducks]

Have you run (and corrected if necessary) Library Maintenance?
Everything depends on Metadata.db

I am out of ideas.
This may be for Kovid

[jvorzimmer]

Originally Posted by theducks

Have you run (and corrected if necessary) Library Maintenance?
Everything depends on Metadata.db

Yes, every time I run the library maintenance, it comes up clean.

[kovidgoyal]

There arent any changes in this area in calibre in a long time, but feel free to downgrade, though I doubt it will help. Trying it wont hurt. Trash bin doesnt affect book listing, only where deleted files are placed.

[jvorzimmer]

Well, I finally solved the problem. The solution was simple. I should have adhered to my own edicts of problem-solving, number one of which is, look for the simple solution first (don't over-think it).

I shut down the main Calibre program, opened task manager to see if there were instances of Calibre still running. Sure enough there seemed to be a parallel process still going. I killed all the Calibre processes and restarted the main program, then I restarted my browser and CC and, bada bing bada boom, the new books were there for downloading!

Thanks to all who pitched in to help solve this one.

Jeff

[jvorzimmer]

This problem has reared its ugly head again. It's become increasingly problematic. It is definitely related to multiple versions of Calibre running simultaneously.

I'll add books to Calibre and connect using the web interface or CC and the books aren't there. I'll kill the GUI and yet I can still connect to Calibre Server.

If I kill all instances of Calibre in the Windows Task Manager and restart the GUI, everything looks right, but CC or the web interface doesn't associate the new books I've downloaded already with the same books on the Calibre Server.

Once I've started from a clean start I have to redownload the new books.

I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the way I start Calibre. It's started on the last line of a backup batch file:
start calibre

Should I be designating the library's location?

Jeff

[jvorzimmer]

Not sure why this is happening. At first I thought it was due to the fact that Calibre was not shutting down from my backup batch with the line "taskkill /im Calibre.exe /t" and then was restarting Calibre at the end of the batch. But even if I removed the lines killing and restarting Calibre running during the backup, the problem didn't go away.

This morning in the task manager (Windows 11) I found eight parallel Calibre Worker processes running. I discovered it when I couldn't load a book. I double-clicked on the book, nothing happened, double-clicked again and got a message that the book was already in the library. Searched for it, but not found, of course. Tried to add it via Add Books—nothing. Found all the parallel processes and killed all with "taskkill /im Calibre* /t /f" (I realized I had to add /f to force close) and reopened Calibre. Three copies appeared as the latest entries.

[theducks]

Does the CLI not work from a batch?
https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/gen...n/calibre.html

calibre --shutdown-running-calibre, -s

Cause a running calibre instance, if any, to be shutdown. Note that if there are running jobs, they will be silently aborted, so use with care.

I would think this would be better than a Kill

[jvorzimmer]

It's clear that somehow I'm getting multiple separate instances of Calibre running and it's still causing problems. I'm running the latest version (6.29) on a Windows 11 Dell micro with Calibre Server running on startup.

I access that computer several times a day from multiple locations via RDP and I'm wondering if it might be related to that, although I'm using the same logon every time.

I add books and they disappear. I can still see the files in the Calibre directory though. I kill all instances of Calibre and restart and the books reappear. But any books I've entered after those then disappear. Sometimes I get an error message at this point that books cannot be found. If I run library maintenance Calibre finds the books, but only gives me a chance to delete them. I then have to reenter them.

This seems to be a bug that was introduced with version 6.2 and I have absolutely no idea what triggers the second instance of Calibre.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.