Calibre 0.8.49 Portable can't connect to any server...?

[chojin996]

I just downloaded the latest Calibre Portable 0.8.49 and like the previous
version it can't connect to any server to either retrieve metadata and covers as well as for downloading plugins.

Everytime I try downloading metadata and covers for whatever books added to the database I am getting this error:

(Failed metadata) (Failed cover)

When trying to download new plugins in the preferences "Get new plugins" I get this error:

"Unable to reach the MobileRead plugins forum index page"

Could anyone please explain me why the portable version can't connect on the 'net at all?
It's running under WindowsXP SP3. There are no software firewalls active, no antivirus software either.
My network connection works perfectly.
I have a Dual WAN router with two ADSL2+ connections. But all applications always worked and I never found a program that couldn't connect to the 'net at all like this one.
I don't have to set any hardware firewall rules for it like with torrent clients,right? There are no settings in the UI for doing that as far as I can tell. It's using standard http port 80, 81 or 8080 connections, right?
I have no clue why it's not working. But the portable version is not connecting to the 'net at all. It's like it couldn't see the network under XP SP3 at all.

[kovidgoyal]

You probably have an invalid proxy defined in your internet explorer connection settings. calibre uses those automatically.

[chojin996]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

You probably have an invalid proxy defined in your internet explorer connection settings. calibre uses those automatically.

That's not the case.
I have no proxy set in IE8 and I tried lowering security from Medium-High to Medium but nothing changed on Calibre Portable. It still can't connect on the 'net.

Trying to download covers errors:

****************************** Google Covers ******************************
Request extra headers: [('User-agent', 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:6.0) Gecko/20110814 Firefox/6.0')]
Failed to download valid cover
Took 0.108999967575 seconds
No cached cover found, running identify
Failed to make identify query: u'http://books.google.com/books/feeds/volumes?q=intitle%3AArmand+intitle%3AIl+intitle%3A Vampiro%2Binauthor%3AAnne+inauthor%3ARice&max-results=20&min-viewability=none&start-index=1'
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\metadata\sources\google.py ", line 303, in identify
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_mechanize.py", line 199, in open_novisit
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_mechanize.py", line 230, in _mech_open
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_opener.py", line 193, in open
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_urllib2_fork.py", line 344, in _open
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_urllib2_fork.py", line 332, in _call_chain
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_urllib2_fork.py", line 1142, in http_open
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_urllib2_fork.py", line 1118, in do_open
URLError:

No cover found

************************************************** ******************************

****************************** Amazon.com Covers ******************************
Request extra headers: [('User-agent', 'Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0)')]
Failed to download valid cover
Took 0.108999967575 seconds
No cached cover found, running identify
Failed to make identify query: u'http://www.amazon.com/s/?sort=relevanceexprank&field-author=Anne+Rice&field-title=Armand+Il+Vampiro&search-alias=stripbooks&unfiltered=1'
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\metadata\sources\amazon.py ", line 735, in identify
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_mechanize.py", line 199, in open_novisit
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_mechanize.py", line 230, in _mech_open
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_opener.py", line 193, in open
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_urllib2_fork.py", line 344, in _open
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_urllib2_fork.py", line 332, in _call_chain
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_urllib2_fork.py", line 1142, in http_open
File "site-packages\mechanize-0.2.4-py2.7.egg\mechanize\_urllib2_fork.py", line 1118, in do_open
URLError:

No cover found

************************************************** ******************************

[chojin996]

I just tried installing the standard .msi installer version instead of using the portable one but nothing changed. It's the same. It can't connect to the 'net at all.
I can't figure out why. Nothing is wrong with my XP SP3 configuration. All other programs always worked. Only Calibre is unable to connect to the 'net.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by chojin996

I just tried installing the standard .msi installer version instead of using the portable one but nothing changed. It's the same. It can't connect to the 'net at all.
I can't figure out why. Nothing is wrong with my XP SP3 configuration. All other programs always worked. Only Calibre is unable to connect to the 'net.

Firewall and proxy settings are the common culprits for outbound blockage.

[chojin996]

Originally Posted by theducks

Firewall and proxy settings are the common culprits for outbound blockage.

Fact is only Calibre is not connecting to the 'net.
My router is correctly configured, everything works, I have 4 PCs and 2 NAS devices connected to it.
Even VMWare virtual machines can connect to the 'net correctly on any pc.
Calibre is the only program that can't see the network for whatever reason.
Everything else works.
It shouldn't happen but it's what Calibre is doing here. The problem is I don't understand why.

[itimpi]

From the symptoms you describe I would strongly suspect that it is your Firewall blocking Calibre. Any new install of Calibre is likely to be treated as a new program. Depending on what firewall software you are using this may require the Firewall to be updated to allow new versions to access the internet.

As Was early mentioned about the only other possibility is that there is a proxy setting somewhere that Calibre is picking up and trying to use. However you seemed pretty confident that this was not the case.

[chojin996]

Originally Posted by itimpi

From the symptoms you describe I would strongly suspect that it is your Firewall blocking Calibre. Any new install of Calibre is likely to be treated as a new program. Depending on what firewall software you are using this may require the Firewall to be updated to allow new versions to access the internet.

As Was early mentioned about the only other possibility is that there is a proxy setting somewhere that Calibre is picking up and trying to use. However you seemed pretty confident that this was not the case.

XP SP3 embedded software firewall is disabled.
I have no software firewall running.
I have no antivirus running.
I have no proxy settings in InternetExplorer8. No LAN settings either. It's all left blank not configured for any particular configuration.
IE8 works perfectly just like all other programs connecting on the 'net, the Winsock stack has no issues.
There are no viruses in the system either. Manually running non-resident antimalware scanners gives no infections result.
I don't know how Calibre estabilishes internet connection at source code level, thru which APIs, but if it's using InternetExplorer settings to do it then I don't understand how comes it's the only program unable to connect given that IE8 itself is running fine too.

[chojin996]

Ok, I found out what was wrong in my XP SP3 installation.
Maybe it was caused by VMWare8 Workstation because I tried using Calibre inside some virtual machines XP SP3 and Win7 SP1 and it was working correctly on both. Which looked really weird given the fact that VMWare uses its own bridging driver to use the real physical network connection in the system.
So I tried repairing the Winsock stack with these commands:

Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults: netsh winsock reset catalog

Reset TCP/IP stack to installation defaults: netsh int ip reset reset.log

And now Calibre is working correctly and it connects to the 'net from the XP SP3 physical machine and not only inside the virtual machines.

Either VMWare8 caused the issue or maybe either the Samsung laser printer LAN driver or an Epson inkjet printer LAN driver I installed for the printers I use. Which is likely. Probably the combination of the various installers corrupted the Winsock stack and catalog for whatever reason.