Timeout on Sync

[K8HW]

I have been a happy Calibre Companion user for many years. I have used it on a Nexus 7 (2012 Android 4.4.4) and a Galaxy Tab A (Android 7.1.1) without any problems.

I just installed it on My Galaxy A03S Smartphone (Android 11) and it will not sync. I didn't have any problem loading 4093 books. When I reconnect, it runs for about 5 minutes and stops with an error:

There was a timeout while communicating with the device in function: Device did not respond in reasonable time

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre\devices\smart_device_app\driver.py", line 678, in _receive_from_client
File "calibre\devices\smart_device_app\driver.py", line 594, in _read_string_from_net
File "calibre\devices\smart_device_app\driver.py", line 579, in _read_binary_from_net
socket.timeout: timed out

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre\gui2\device.py", line 87, in run
File "calibre\gui2\device.py", line 512, in _books
File "calibre\devices\smart_device_app\driver.py", line 59, in _synchronizer
File "calibre\devices\smart_device_app\driver.py", line 1299, in books
File "calibre\devices\smart_device_app\driver.py", line 59, in _synchronizer
File "calibre\devices\smart_device_app\driver.py", line 658, in _call_client
File "calibre\devices\smart_device_app\driver.py", line 690, in _receive_from_client
calibre.devices.errors.TimeoutError: There was a timeout while communicating with the device in function: Device did not respond in reasonable time

Any help would be greatly appreciated
dbart

[bazookajoe]

OK so I'm a numbskull that doesn't understand any of this but does have a stupid amount of Samsung devices and as nobody else has suggestions I'll just share my personal experience in case there's anything of use.

You doing Wireless Sync with books? My lower-end Samsung devices don't handle that. They don't like any of the sync options really but there's ranks of badness. My Samsung flagships work fine with all sync methods and are fast, my old Tab A 8.0 2017 works OK (Pie), The real issues come from my Android 11 Tab A's (and Onyx Leaf on SD but that's later).

The worst is one I got in from America. I notice you're American. This is probably a total coincidence but I just found it interesting and we definitely get different Samsung variations (usually this is to our disadvantage as we're stuck on Exynos) but here, I hate that dang thing. The Tab A 8.4 2020. That's just painful compared to my other AU or International model Samsung lower-ends. Wireless no books struggles quite a bit and just works whenever it feels like it. Or doesn't. Depends on level of change. Wireless with books forget it. Don't even bother. Content Server highly dubious to the point where I don't bother to even see if I can get a book down it takes too darn long. I Cloud sync (also painfully slow) on all those devices, then after that I Wireless no books for updating read/meta changes on non-Americans or in the American case, I perform incantations, offer to sell my soul to Satan and hope that something will work (note: something does not always work).

That American one, most of the time even USB plugging in direct to PC and using Calibre itself I get a similar error as yours device did not respond in reasonable time.

Can you use other methods (Cloud, Content Server?) then Wireless no books for metadata? Can you sacrifice syncing read/date read data and just rely on Windows Calibre for keeping track of read and make getting books down your main priority?

You could also try contacting Calibre/Calibre forums itself to translate what those error messages mean and see if they have any tips at their end for overcoming this (caches? Settings? Plugboards? Using a more optimal file structure? I just don't know I'm an idiot and only use like 2% of Calibres functionality). You're not going to get any more support or development on CC it's dead in the water from what I understand.

So, I'm gonna just spitball here. I wonder if the use of external SD card and/or size of our libraries is what compounds this issue. I mean, for me in my head there's clearly other factors like hardware/price, maybe how storage is accessed but we do get similar errors. It's reading all what's on the device that's causing my issue with the American one. It struggles to get 10.5K books info back and times out. Your library is only half compared to mine but it's certainly bigger than a lot of peoples so you are getting up there in size.

Maybe a thing to try is changing file structure. I only mention this because it's only recently I saw the profound difference. Normally I use the Moon+ Reader filename setting default {title} - {author}. It's not exactly lightning but tolerable speed on the flagships and then given the trouble of downloading books on cheapies I typically restore full settings AND book database from flagships and then put the CC folder from my flagship down to the external SD cards on my cheaper devices and change the path because LOL I'm not even gonna try getting that whole lot down via CC sync. Enter Onyx Leaf and OTG SD storage I could not restore in my usual way. Too laggy. I had to download it. It took nearly 2 weeks to get about 9100 books down (no not kidding. Side note doesn't matter it won't open them after anyway. Write access, no read access). Onyx Forces FAT32 and it wouldn't take any more files in one directory which is what forced me to look into this. MobileRead to the rescue. You can use subfolders template with CC I used:

{first author:%1.1s}/{first_author}/{title} - {authors} {id}

Folders of first letter (A, B, C) then author folders in each of those folders then books. In this instance FAT32 is irrelevant to us but the speed may not be. Down to that OTG SD card on Leaf with that template? About 7-9 hours for all 10.5K. That's an unbelievable difference. Mindblowing. It was so damn FAAAAAAST.

Now, I don't want to be responsible for wrecking what you've got if you don't know how to back up and restore and yes, the Painful American was the worst to restore it took me quite a while to get it to let me change the path to external SD. There was a lot of timing out and crashing until finally I got it. It might do nothing but if the speed is that different coming down, maybe the speed going back up to Calibre reading the books/data already on the device will also be that much different too to address this response time issue? You know? I might try it...I dunno I'm a bit meh about having to try restore my old setup if it does nothing plus that's going to mess with Moon+ Sync which means I'll have to change all my devices to subfolders to keep uniform file names. Ugh. We'll see.

IF all else fails, you could look at Calibre Sync which is what I've been forced to do on my Onyx Leaf. It's alright. It is paid ($AU6.95 for me) it gives you more options to get books to it. There's a recent thread on it here in the Calibre Companion forum. I think I remember someone saying there's issues with syncing back read/date read data which, lol which is probably your bugbear here so...just remember that. Have a shop around and see.