Calibre Companion no Reader App?

[TucsonBill]

I am running CC (full) on a Sony Experia Tablet Z (Android 5.1.1). Library is on Dropbox. I can download books just fine. However when I click on "Read" I get a popup telling me I need a reader app. I have FBreader and Moon+ installed, but CC evidently can't find them. Any help would be appreciated.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by TucsonBill

I am running CC (full) on a Sony Experia Tablet Z (Android 5.1.1). Library is on Dropbox. I can download books just fine. However when I click on "Read" I get a popup telling me I need a reader app. I have FBreader and Moon+ installed, but CC evidently can't find them. Any help would be appreciated.

Hard to say what is happening. Normally CC finds both those apps are without difficulty.

I might be able to find something from a CC debug log. Instructions for sending one are here. Please remove the MultiPie.co.uk address.

Another possibility is that something went wrong with the installation of one or all of the apps. You could try uninstalling all three of them, then re-installing the reader apps, then re-installing CC. You can avoid needing to re-download the books into CC if you do a backup and recover as described in this FAQ answer. The process works even though you aren't changing versions.

[TucsonBill]

Thanks, Chaley! Tried what you suggested with no success. Debug log coming your way.

[chaley]

Ahh, I see the problem and should have thought to mention it. You are using azw3 format. The only android reader app I know of that supports that is Kindle for Android, which unfortunately does not play well with CC.

I suggest you convert the books to epub in calibre and use those. Conversion between azw3 and epub is very clean.

[TucsonBill]

Thanks, Chaley! That did the trick!

Bill

[fedro1016]

I have the same problem with CC and FBReader.
But I have seen that FBR supports azw3 and I can open azw3 files from fbr directly.
From CC it is not possible, why?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by fedro1016

I have the same problem with CC and FBReader.
But I have seen that FBR supports azw3 and I can open azw3 files from fbr directly.
From CC it is not possible, why?

Because FBReader is not advertising that it supports azw3. Even worse, it supports azw3 by pretending that the books are .mobi. If CC does the same then lots of other reader apps break. For example, moon+ shows binary, not a book. I *really really* wish that the reader app developers would do things correctly.

I am looking at whether I can work around how FBReader does things.

[gsparks2]

I had a related issue. I only put epub files on my device. I had one epub file that would not open in Moon+ Pro Reader. CC popped up a message that said no reader app found even though all other epubs opened fine. It took me a while and a lot of useless resets, reinstalls, re-transfers , etc., to figure out ther was something wrong with that particular epub. I have since fixed the epub in Calibre and loaded it on the device and all is well.

Perhaps the message from CC could say something like "no reader found for this file format" or something similar when the reason is that the installed reader cannot open the file?

[chaley]

Originally Posted by gsparks2

I had a related issue. I only put epub files on my device. I had one epub file that would not open in Moon+ Pro Reader. CC popped up a message that said no reader app found even though all other epubs opened fine. It took me a while and a lot of useless resets, reinstalls, re-transfers , etc., to figure out ther was something wrong with that particular epub. I have since fixed the epub in Calibre and loaded it on the device and all is well.

Perhaps the message from CC could say something like "no reader found for this file format" or something similar when the reason is that the installed reader cannot open the file?

Interesting. I don't see how this can happen because CC doesn't look at the file content and (I thought) that reader app advertising also doesn't look at it. Any chance you could send me a debug log at cc_debug_logs at charles dot haleys dot org? I am hoping that the failure to find the reader app will still be in the log.

[gsparks2]

I will try. It has been a few weeks since this occurred.

[gsparks2]

sent the debug file

[chaley]

Originally Posted by gsparks2

sent the debug file

Thanks. It goes back to 28/Dec/15, which apparently isn't far enough.

The only thing strange I see is that a book by Nuttall was stored as an azw3. Attempts to read the book failed with "no reader app". On Dec 29 it was deleted then re-added as an epub, at which point the book could be read. Does this book have any relationship with the problem you saw?

[gsparks2]

No that was not the book. The book was already an epub. Thanks for looking. If I run into it again I will immediately send a debug file.