Unable to open MOBI formats

[tekeek]

Thanks for the application.

Just sharing experience. I am unable to open any MOBI files thus far using portable calibre. I will use the "Oxford Dictionary of English - Copy.mobi" for my example.

I can open it in Kindle for PC (1.24.3) and SumatraPDF (3.2 64-bit). I get no error adding it to calibre 5.4.2 or 4.23 portable. It even shows the cover.

When I try to open it in calibre or right-clicking the file to choose calibre e-book viewer the following error occurs after a period of "Preparing book for first read, please wait".

It seems to relate to a memory error based on last line of message. I don't recall having issues with MOBI files before. I can only assume that it has to do with 32 vs 64 bit as I can get them to open on 64 bit calibre, however, it takes for ever for them to load and when they do and I click to go to new page it take forever to render the next page. At this point I will have to deal with using SumatraPDF or Kindle for PC as they load quicker

calibre, version 4.23.0
ERROR: Loading book failed: Failed to open the book at D:\Downloads\IMPORTED\Oxford Dictionary of English - Copy.mobi. Click "Show details" for more info.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\viewer\ui.py", line 468, in _load_ebook_worker
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\viewer\convert_book.py", line 234, in prepare_book
File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\viewer\convert_book.py", line 191, in do_convert
ConversionFailure: Failed to convert book: D:\Downloads\IMPORTED\Oxford Dictionary of English - Copy.mobi with error:
InputFormatPlugin: MOBI Input running
on D:\Downloads\IMPORTED\Oxford Dictionary of English - Copy.mobi
Failed to run pipe worker with command: from calibre.srv.render_book import viewer_main; viewer_main()
Python function terminated unexpectedly
(Error Code: 1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "site.py", line 114, in main
File "site.py", line 88, in run_entry_point
File "site-packages\calibre\utils\ipc\worker.py", line 189, in main
File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
File "site-packages\calibre\srv\render_book.py", line 862, in viewer_main
File "site-packages\calibre\srv\render_book.py", line 855, in render_for_viewer
File "site-packages\calibre\srv\render_book.py", line 834, in render
File "site-packages\calibre\srv\render_book.py", line 639, in process_exploded_book
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\polish\toc.py", line 419, in from_xpaths
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\polish\container.py", line 624, in parsed
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\polish\container.py", line 594, in parse
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\polish\container.py", line 208, in parse_xhtml
File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\oeb\polish\parsing.py", line 65, in parse
File "site-packages\calibre\__init__.py", line 589, in xml_replace_entities
MemoryError

Here is a side by side comparison of SumatraPDF and calibre viewer
Here is a link for a larger view

[kovidgoyal]

dictionaries are not suported in calibre. And convert your MOBI file to epub before opening it for much better performance on first open.

[tekeek]

So what is different in those? Which now that you say Dictionary that is thus far all the one's I have tried.

[tekeek]

So since this is still related to the file mentioned above I am mentioning it here, I'll repost it elsewhere if needed.

I realized today that the original format before importing into calibure was azw. I can only presume once I imported it and DRM was removed that it converted it to mobi as that is the format it shows once imported. If I import it into calibre that doesn't have DRM removal it keeps the format at AZW.

So with the mobi DRM free version I tried to convert it back to AZW and receive the following: note: I have path for debug info, however, nothing is outputting there.

calibre, version 4.23.0 (win32, embedded-python: True)
Conversion error: Failed: Convert book 1 of 1 (Oxford Dictionary of English - Copy)

Convert book 1 of 1 (Oxford Dictionary of English - Copy)
Initialized urlfixer
Conversion options changed from defaults:
verbose: 2
debug_pipeline: u'D:\\.tmp\\calibre debug'
read_metadata_from_opf: u'C:\\Users\\rillo\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calibre_ dovobu\\w8upzn.opf'
output_profile: u'kindle_fire'
cover: u'C:\\Users\\rillo\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calibre_ dovobu\\qelpuf.jpeg'
Resolved conversion options
calibre version: 4.23.0
{'asciiize': False,
'author_sort': None,
'authors': None,
'base_font_size': 0.0,
'book_producer': None,
'change_justification': u'original',
'chapter': u"//*[((name()='h1' or name()='h2') and re:test(., '\\s*((chapter|book|section|part)\\s+)|((prolog|pr ologue|epilogue)(\\s+|$))', 'i')) or @class = 'chapter']",
'chapter_mark': u'pagebreak',
'comments': None,
'cover': u'C:\\Users\\rillo\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calibre_ dovobu\\qelpuf.jpeg',
'debug_pipeline': u'D:\\.tmp\\calibre debug',
'dehyphenate': True,
'delete_blank_paragraphs': True,
'disable_font_rescaling': False,
'dont_compress': False,
'duplicate_links_in_toc': False,
'embed_all_fonts': False,
'embed_font_family': None,
'enable_heuristics': False,
'expand_css': False,
'extra_css': None,
'extract_to': None,
'filter_css': u'',
'fix_indents': True,
'font_size_mapping': None,
'format_scene_breaks': True,
'html_unwrap_factor': 0.4,
'input_encoding': None,
'input_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.InputProfile object at 0x05F70230>,
'insert_blank_line': False,
'insert_blank_line_size': 0.5,
'insert_metadata': False,
'isbn': None,
'italicize_common_cases': True,
'keep_ligatures': False,
'language': None,
'level1_toc': None,
'level2_toc': None,
'level3_toc': None,
'line_height': 0.0,
'linearize_tables': False,
'margin_bottom': 5.0,
'margin_left': 5.0,
'margin_right': 5.0,
'margin_top': 5.0,
'markup_chapter_headings': True,
'max_toc_links': 50,
'minimum_line_height': 120.0,
'mobi_toc_at_start': False,
'no_chapters_in_toc': False,
'no_inline_navbars': False,
'no_inline_toc': False,
'output_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.KindleFireOutput object at 0x05E92630>,
'page_breaks_before': u"//*[name()='h1' or name()='h2']",
'prefer_author_sort': False,
'prefer_metadata_cover': False,
'pretty_print': False,
'pubdate': None,
'publisher': None,
'rating': None,
'read_metadata_from_opf': u'C:\\Users\\rillo\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\calibre_ dovobu\\w8upzn.opf',
'remove_fake_margins': True,
'remove_first_image': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing': False,
'remove_paragraph_spacing_indent_size': 1.5,
'renumber_headings': True,
'replace_scene_breaks': u'',
'search_replace': '[]',
'series': None,
'series_index': None,
'share_not_sync': False,
'smarten_punctuation': False,
'sr1_replace': None,
'sr1_search': None,
'sr2_replace': None,
'sr2_search': None,
'sr3_replace': None,
'sr3_search': None,
'start_reading_at': None,
'subset_embedded_fonts': False,
'tags': None,
'timestamp': None,
'title': None,
'title_sort': None,
'toc_filter': None,
'toc_threshold': 6,
'toc_title': None,
'transform_css_rules': '[]',
'unsmarten_punctuation': False,
'unwrap_lines': True,
'use_auto_toc': False,
'verbose': 2}
InputFormatPlugin: MOBI Input running
on C:\Users\rillo\AppData\Local\Temp\calibre_dovobu\y pyake.mobi
Extracting text...
Adding anchors...
Extracting images...
Cleaning up HTML...
Parsing HTML...

[DNSB]

One possible reason for your MemoryError message is that calibre portable is 32 bit. It has less memory available and given the size and complex structure of most dictionaries, you could simply be running out of memory.

Perhaps opening a smaller file might allow you to test that idea.

[tekeek]

Originally Posted by DNSB

One possible reason for your MemoryError message is that calibre portable is 32 bit. It has less memory available and given the size and complex structure of most dictionaries, you could simply be running out of memory.

Perhaps opening a smaller file might allow you to test that idea.

You are partially correct. As I stated in my initial message "I can get them to open on 64 bit calibre, however, it takes for ever for them to load", however, Kovid mentioned dictionaries are not supported. Which based on his brief description probably has to do with the structure in which they are designed and possibly their file size. The ones I have in mobi format are 40 MB +. The only reader(s) they will open in is Kindle and SumatraPDF. I have tried many other readers and they all result in the same stance as calibre.

So at this point I am trying to convert them.

[tekeek]

Now that I say all that, my conversion error in calibre may be a result I am using calibre portable that is 32 to convert. I will try 64 bit to see the results.

now I feel bad for taking up time on this as I should have thoroughly done more testing before reporting anything.

[DNSB]

Like pretty much everybody in these forums, it's a learning experience.

To quote Ramon Batista, “The only stupid question is the question that is never asked.”

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by tekeek

So what is different in those? Which now that you say Dictionary that is thus far all the one's I have tried.

Dictionaries have very messy/elaborate internal markup that makes rendering/converting/displaying them very slow without specialized code to deal with them, which is not worth the effort for me.

[tekeek]

Originally Posted by tekeek

Now that I say all that, my conversion error in calibre may be a result I am using calibre portable that is 32 to convert. I will try 64 bit to see the results.

now I feel bad for taking up time on this as I should have thoroughly done more testing before reporting anything.

My conversion error was a result of using the 32 and not 64 bit. Once I used 64bit it ran through without errors. It took 13H 33m 14s to convert the file from mobi (26,939 KB) to epub (18,104 KB). I do still have issues opening the epub in calibre, however after using the edit function I noticed errors in the book and not certain if that is a result of the conversion or it was part of the original format.

I noticed while dissecting the epub that all the dictionary pages use <frameset></frameset> and is my understanding its not a supported feature by the mainstream. If I clear out the frameset the pages that would not load or so I thought will display it's content. The other issue was certain *.html files were considered to large "This HTML file is larger than 260 KB. Too large HTML files can cause performance problems on some e-book readers. Consider splitting this file into smaller sections."

How would one go about splitting?

[tekeek]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Dictionaries have very messy/elaborate internal markup that makes rendering/converting/displaying them very slow without specialized code to deal with them, which is not worth the effort for me.

Thanks for responding, as I just went through half a day digging into mobi file, and researching the whole internal markup my self I came to the same conclusion.