Plugin doesn't finish instalation

[JimmXinu]

@kiaraSe raised this question in the FFF thread first. After going through the same first few steps without fixing it, I directed them to ask at a higher level and here we are.

kiaraSe -- If you run calibre in debug mode (under the Preferences dropdown), perhaps the log will have some useful info for us.

[kiaraSe]

Originally Posted by gbm

Down load the plugin, then Boot windows in safe mode, then try to install the plugin using install from zip file.

bernie

I tried that, no help unfortunately.

[kiaraSe]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

@kiaraSe raised this question in the FFF thread first. After going through the same first few steps without fixing it, I directed them to ask at a higher level and here we are.

kiaraSe -- If you run calibre in debug mode (under the Preferences dropdown), perhaps the log will have some useful info for us.

OK! I solved the problem.

It appears that the issue was that my user name in Windows was not in English letters. As can be seen in the log there is some error, though everything besides FFF worked fine so I don't know why only FFF was affected.

calibre Debug log
calibre 3.21 [64bit] embedded-python: True is64bit: True
Windows-10-10.0.16299-SP0 Windows ('64bit', 'WindowsPE')
('Windows', '10', '10.0.16299')
Python 2.7.12+
Windows: ('10', '10.0.16299', 'SP0', u'Multiprocessor Free')
Interface language: None
calibre 3.21 [64bit] embedded-python: True is64bit: True
Windows-10-10.0.16299-SP0 Windows ('64bit', 'WindowsPE')
('Windows', '10', '10.0.16299')
Python 2.7.12+
Windows: ('10', '10.0.16299', 'SP0', u'Multiprocessor Free')
Interface language: None
Turning on automatic hidpi scaling
devicePixelRatio: 1.0
logicalDpi: 120.0 x 120.0
physicalDpi: 141.76744186 x 141.402061856
Using calibre Qt style: True
[0.00] Starting up...
[0.00] Showing splash screen...
[0.08] splash screen shown
[0.08] Initializing db...
[0.09] db initialized
[0.09] Constructing main UI...
[1.53] main UI initialized...
[1.53] Hiding splash screen
Python function terminated unexpectedly
[Error 123] The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect: 'C:\\Users\\?????' (Error Code: 1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site.py", line 101, in main
File "site.py", line 77, in run_entry_point
File "site-packages\calibre\__init__.py", line 22, in <module>
File "site-packages\calibre\startup.py", line 92, in <module>
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\localization.py", line 200, in set_translators
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\localization.py", line 85, in get_lang
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\config_base.py", line 452, in <module>
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\config_base.py", line 357, in __setitem__
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\config_base.py", line 371, in set
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\config_base.py", line 299, in set
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\config_base.py", line 21, in make_config_dir
File "os.py", line 150, in makedirs
File "os.py", line 150, in makedirs
File "os.py", line 157, in makedirs
WindowsError: [Error 123] The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect: 'C:\\Users\\?????'
[5.38] splash screen hidden
[5.38] Started up in 5.38 seconds with 1 books
Downloading plugin ZIP attachment: https://code.calibre-ebook.com/plugins/259221.zip
Installing plugin: C:\Users\5864~1\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_spgi5t\ qbxxaq.zip

I created another user account and this time named it in English and managed to install FFF without any issues.

So now we know.

Thank you everyone for helping me.

Now to move everything to the new account.

[JimmXinu]

Hmmm. The debug doesn't show any FFF code actually running. My first thought was maybe it was the FFF debug log messages containing user home path. I don't even know how I'd go about making a new windows user at all, let alone with a non-English name.

FFF is one of the few plugins (as far as I know) to use localization translations. And the error above is passing through localization.py. So maybe something to do with that?

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by kiaraSe

OK! I solved the problem.

<snip>

Now to move everything to the new account.

So my intuition was right - wasn't your fault.

But strictly speaking you didn't 'solve the problem' you 'found the cause'. Knowing how Kovid operates, I imagine he will want to find a correction/workaround to solve the problem once and for all

BR

[kiaraSe]

@JimmXinu Sorry I can't give more than that, but even when I opened in debug after the installation it didn't show anything about FFF. So I don't know where the break happens.

@BetterRed You're right, but at least I can once more enjoy all the options of Calibre that I love so much

And even though it seems like a foolish reason to cause the failure apparently it wasn't my only problem as a result of that, I also had an unrelated program I couldn't install and now have no problems with.

Very strange considering Windows comes in so many languages. Or maybe there was some problem with the account in general? But it was brand new on a new PC.

[kovidgoyal]

This will happen if your windows locale is set to use some encoding that cannot represent the characters in the user name. Then any software that uses the non-unicode win32 APIs will have failures. The way to fix it is to change the windows locale to a UTF-8 based one.