TOC not hooked up properly in downloaded/converted news

[RobFreundlich]

The attached ZIP file contains two MOBI files. The first, missing-toc.mobi, was created by calibre's scheduled news download last night. If I look at it in Calibre's side panel, it appears to have content (see missing-toc-sidePanel.png).

However, if I look at it in Calibre's viewer, it appears to have no content (see missing-toc-viewer.png)

If I run my recipe manually:

ebook-convert "Boston Globe Subscription_1005.recipe" .EPUB -vv --debug-pipeline debug --username XXXX --password XXXX

and then convert that output to MOBI, the result works correctly. That's the second file in the ZIP (has-toc.MOBI)

When I was looking at the bug tracker yesterday, I thought I saw something about MOBI table of contents not working right, but now I can't find it. So this may be a known problem.

Version: Calibre 0.9.34 (patched with the "'builtin_function_or_method' object has no attribute 'rpartition'" fix)

[kovidgoyal]

I just tried downlaoding the boston globe in MOBI and the result had a fully populated ToC. Try running your download again. From the screenshot you posted it looks like no articles were downloaded, robably because the server was having issues at the time.

[RobFreundlich]

Kovid,

You're right - I just ran the download again from within Calibre (Schedule New Download -> Select the recipe, Download Now), and it did fail (see failed_download.txt). What's bizarre is that when I ran my recipe manually again, it succeeded again.

I've attached the recipe. Unfortunately, you'll need a Boston Globe subscription to run it, but maybe you can figure something out by reading the recipe? If not, I can temporarily change my password and give you temporary access that way.

Also, if you'd rather I move this to a bug report, I'd be happy to - whatever works best for you.

[RobFreundlich]

More info:

The info I just posted was from my copy of Calibre at home. I have a copy here at work, and I just pulled the recipe up to my work machine and ran it. it worked correctly.

So there's something about Calibre on my home machine that is failing.

• I've got the same version here and at home, so it's not the code itself.
• Running ebook-convert manually at home, with debug settings turned on, worked, where running the download from within Calibre didn't. So it's not something inherent in the recipe or my home network.
• This worked fine until I installed 0.9.34 a few days ago.

Reasonable explanations: it could be a configuration option I've changed in Calibre, or possibly the debug flags on the manual run, or it's a behavior change in 0.9.34 that is triggered by a configuration option.

I'll compare options between the work and home Calibre installations, but if you (Kovid or anyone else) have got any ideas (given what I've reported) that can narrow down my search, it'd be a huge help.

Thanks!

[kovidgoyal]

There haven't been any changes to the news download system in 0.9.34, but feel free to downgrade to 0.9.33 and try it. Other than that, nothing jumps out at me from that log.

[RobFreundlich]

It turns out I'd been on 0.9.30 before 0.9.34, so I went back to that version, and it worked. I then incrementally installed 0.9.31, 32, 33, and 34, trying the download at each step. Each succeeded, including the latest.

I suspect that what happened was one of these:

1. Jumping from 0.9.30 to 0.9.34 introduced a subtle problem
2. Installing two different versions of 0.9.34 introduced a subtle problem (I had started with the original 0.9.34 and then gotten the new one to fix the "no attribute" problem)
3. There was cruft of some kind in my install directory. Since I had to completely uninstall to go back from 0.9.34 to 0.9.30, that cleared the cruft and fixed it for me.

Regardless, I'm working now, so from a practical perspective, it doesn't really matter to me what went wrong. Thanks for the tip to downgrade!