Converted AZW3 hangs Kindle Paperwhite

[Coleccionista]

I converted an EPUB file to AZW3 (default settings, calibre 3.40.1).
Both the original EPUB and the converted AZW3 display in the calibre ebook viewer but when I send the AZW3 to the Kindle Paperwhite and click on the book cover it just stays in "Opening...." and I have to reset the reader to get it working again.

If I convert it to MOBI there's no such problem but it loses all typography. I have converted other EPUBs to AZW3 and they do open so there must be some problem with this particular file but I have no clue what it is

Here is the conversion log
https://pastebin.com/fX8FRFtz

And here is the resulting AZW3 that hangs the Kindle Paperwhite (fw. 5.9.7)
https://mega.nz/#!lzRySY4L!NA4o_hEnB...3-sy9v7ETg4-J4

[kovidgoyal]

I dont see anything particularly noteworthy in that azw3. Sadly the Kindle provides no error messages when it fails to opena book, so it is impossible to know what it doesnt like without major experimentation. Since it is just one book I suggest converting it to PDF sized for the kindle's screen instead.

[retiredbiker]

Yep, kills my Oasis as well, so I had a bash at your book in the editor; fixed errors shown in "Check Book", got the zillion footnotes into one file, etc., etc. No luck. Can't see anything that looks wrong. Like Kovid says--major experimentation to figure it out.

You might take a working mobi copy and try converting it back to azw3, and if that works, do a little editing to pretty it back up...but that could be a lot of work.

[lumpynose]

It killed my Oasis as well. It also takes noticeably longer to open in the Calibre viewer. The only thing that I wondered about is the .svg files; I was wondering if they could be too complicated or something.

[lumpynose]

I tested my theory and deleted all of the .svg files and then it opened and I could page through it.

[kovidgoyal]

Good thought

[Coleccionista]

Edit UPDATE: Yup, it was them SVGs

Thank you guys for the help. Meanwhile I upgraded the firmware to the latest version 5.11.1. It seems that it does not fix the problem but it hides it.
I converted the EPUB to MOBI with 3 tools:

• Kindle Previewer 3 (file here)
• KindleGen (file here)
• Calibre

Results: MOBI created by KP and KindleGen won't even show in the book list of the device. (As a bonus the MOBI created with KindleGen won't even open in KP ) The only one that actually works is the MOBI created with Calibre (whose viewer opens all 3 MOBIs files).

I'm going to check the svg files that lumpynose pointed out and as a fallback the no-frills/no-fonts Calibre MOBI should be good enough.

PS: KP looks gorgeous though , shame that the real Kindle cannot open the very same file KP displays as "preview"

[lumpynose]

It would be a lot of work but you could use calibre's editor to export the .svg files and convert them to .png (for example, using gimp) then replace the .svg files in the epub or azw3 files with the .png files.

I did it with a few, the larger ones, and they were merely text; I was expecting maps or something that would benefit from being a graphic.

[rafcastro]

Hi, sorry for resurrecting a 6 month post.
Before discovering these thread I already made a few tests concerning a strange behavior with epubs containing SVG with curves (not text) and/or a large quantity of notes that, after converting it to azw3 with Calibre, hangs Kindle.
I would like to know if anyone made progress regarding these issue. The only solution I found was to avoid converting epubs with these caracteristics with Calibre and use Kindle Previewer or use mobi format.

Thanks in advance

[kovidgoyal]

calibre does not do anything to svgs during conversion, they remain exactly as is, which you can confirm using the edit book tool.

[rafcastro]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

calibre does not do anything to svgs during conversion, they remain exactly as is, which you can confirm using the edit book tool.

yes, it appears is a problem of Kindle managing azw3 with SVG files and/or a hardware limitation. A quick solution is to avoid SVG and use PNG or JPG instead.

Thanks for your reply.

[Llaves]

I recently encountered this problem and that led me to this thread. I was trying to convert a book from epub to azw3 and it kept crashing the kindle on download. Removing the svg files solved the problem.

I opened the epub using 7zip (on Windows) and deleted the svg files. I then converted this revised epub to azw3, which loaded with no issues. (I copied the epub first and worked on the copy, maintaining an intact epub for backup.)

[frostymug]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal
calibre does not do anything to svgs during conversion, they remain exactly as is, which you can confirm using the edit book tool.

That may be so, however, when converting the EPUB containing svg files to AZW3, something causes the resultant AZW3 file to be much, much larger than when converting an EPUB that has had the svg files converted to jpg files (which are smaller than svg files).

When I replace the svg files with jpgs in the EPUB and then convert to AZW3, the book will open in Kindle ereader. I don't have a problem any more. Good. But what is causing Calibre to churn out a giant file if svg is left in the EPUB? OK, svg files are left intact, but obviously they cause something else to really go to haywire.

I am not a coder and can't debug this kind of thing. I am just pointing to a weird phenomenon that needs looking into.

[kovidgoyal]

@frostymug: I dont know why you think your issue hjas anything to do with this thread. In any case if you want to ask questions about conversion problems, follow the steps: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=186697