'On Device' column not showing & cover issues

[Renren]

I recently installed Calibre on a new laptop but I'm having issues. OS is Gentoo with Calibre 1.20, my device is an old kindle 4. I backed my library and copied it to the new laptop.

Calibre sees the library, and it sees the kindle as connected, however it doesn't display the 'On Device' column which used to appear whenever I connected my device. The column isn't hidden, it doesn't seem to exist any more.

When the device is connected, it shows the 'Device' button on top, and I can browse the books in my kindle, so I don't understand what the problem is. One thing that I noticed is that when I connect my kindle there's a notification that says:

Analyzing books on the device: 0%
Analyzing books on the device: 54%

(always those same percentages)

Second issue... whenever I convert books, the cover is removed, and also I can't add/change covers to books. This the error message when I try to add an image to a book:

calibre, version 1.20.0
ERROR: Unhandled exception: <b>Exception</b>:no decode delegate for this image format `JPEG' @ error/blob.c/BlobToImage/355

calibre 1.20  isfrozen: False is64bit: True
Linux-4.4.26-gentoo-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-TM-_i3-5005U_CPU_@_2.00GHz-with-gentoo-2.3 Linux ('64bit', 'ELF')
('Linux', '4.4.26-gentoo', '#9 SMP Sat Dec 24 15:40:59 CET 2016')
Python 2.7.12
Linux: ('Gentoo Base System', '2.3', '')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/gui2/metadata/single.py", line 496, in accept
    if not self.apply_changes():
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/gui2/metadata/single.py", line 469, in apply_changes
    if not widget.commit(self.db, self.book_id):
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/gui2/metadata/basic_widgets.py", line 1087, in commit
    db.set_cover(id_, self.current_val, notify=False, commit=False)
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/db/legacy.py", line 707, in set_cover
    self.new_api.set_cover({book_id:data})
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/db/cache.py", line 57, in call_func_with_lock
    return func(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/db/cache.py", line 1100, in set_cover
    self.backend.set_cover(book_id, path, data)
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/db/backend.py", line 1297, in set_cover
    save_cover_data_to(data, path)
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/utils/magick/draw.py", line 71, in save_cover_data_to
    img = _data_to_image(data)
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/utils/magick/draw.py", line 20, in _data_to_image
    img.load(data)
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/utils/magick/__init__.py", line 135, in load
    return _magick.Image.load(self, data)
Exception: no decode delegate for this image format `JPEG' @ error/blob.c/BlobToImage/355

Seems like I might need to install something I've missed? Anyway, thanks in advance if anyone can help, I've been using Calibre with no trouble for years and it's so helpful to manage my books, it's driving me bonkers that I can't get it to work now.

[PeterT]

You might like to install a more current version of calibre; current version is 2.78. See http://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux for the official build and install instructions.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Renren]

Originally Posted by PeterT

You might like to install a more current version of calibre; current version is 2.78. See http://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux for the official build and install instructions.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Thanks PeterT, can't believe I had overlooked something so simple. I assumed 1.20 was the latest version, instead it's the latest stable version. duh. Works like a charm now.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Renren

Thanks PeterT, can't believe I had overlooked something so simple. I assumed 1.20 was the latest version, instead it's the latest stable version. duh. Works like a charm now.

Version 1.20 hasn't been the latest 'stable' version since version 1.21 was released on 24 Jan, 2014

The latest 'stable' version of calibre is whatever version is here ==>> http://calibre-ebook.com/download. Right now the current stable version is 2.78 released 27 Jan, 2017.

BR

[PeterT]

The gentoo maintainers have 1.20 marked as stable, and newer versions (namely 2.70 and 2.73) marked as testing.

Whenever possible, avoid the version supplied by linux distributions and use the official builds.