Slowness converting markdown book from the GUI in 7.38

[ldolse]

Seeing something really weird. I've got a book that I've been editing using markdown on and off for the last few months.

The book has always converted quickly - about a minute or so - until 7.38 or some other very recent release. Now when I convert from the GUI it just hangs. As I write this I've been waiting 12 minutes with no progress. The debug output just shows the conversion options and nothing else.

The really weird thing is that conversion from the CLI is just fine. I haven't duplicated every command line option in the CLI that I see in the GUI, but I've tried most of the important ones, and so far no problem.

Here are the resolved options in the GUI:

Convert book 1 of 1 (Contact)
Resolved conversion options
calibre version: 0.7.38
{'asciiize': False,
 'author_sort': None,
 'authors': None,
 'base_font_size': 0.0,
 'book_producer': None,
 'change_justification': u'justify',
 'chapter': u"//*[((name()='h1' or name()='h2') and re:test(., 'chapter|book|section|part\\s+', 'i')) or @class = 'chapter']",
 'chapter_mark': u'none',
 'comments': None,
 'cover': '/var/folders/Rm/Rm6mzVkCH6GuTtIFsFdGnU+++TI/-Tmp-/calibre_0.7.38_tmp_m6GdI6/calibre_0.7.38_D9ZfEs.jpeg',
 'debug_pipeline': u'/Users/username/calibredev/temp',
 'disable_font_rescaling': True,
 'dont_split_on_page_breaks': False,
 'epub_flatten': False,
 'extra_css': u'body{font-family: serif}\np {margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0.3em}\n.chapterheader {border: transparent; border-top:3px solid #000}\n.chapternum{font-size: 4em}\ndiv.sectionblock blockquote p {font-size: 85%; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em}\nblockquote {margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.3em}\np + blockquote {margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left:15%}\n.den {font-size: 80%;}\n.num {font-size: 80%; vertical-align:.5ex}\n.pb {page-break-before : always;}\n.sectionblock {width : 60%; margin-left : 35%; margin-top : 5em}\n.softbreak{display: block; text-align: center; letter-spacing: 2em; margin-top: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 1.2em}\np.initial {text-indent: 0;}\nspan.drop {font-size: 300%; font-weight: bold; line-height: .8; height: 1em; float: left; margin: -0.1em 0.125em -0.2em 0em;}\nspan.first {margin-left: -0.5em; white-space: pre; font-size: 80%; font-weight: bold}\nspan.firstafterA {margin-left: -0.75em; font-size: 80%; font-weight: bold}\nspan.firstafterL {margin-left: -1.2em; font-size: 80%; font-weight: bold}\nspan.smcps { white-space: pre; font-size: 80%}\np.initial + p {clear: left;}\nspan.predrop {font-size: 25%; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: top; line-height: 1.9;}\nh2 {text-align: right; margin-bottom: 0em}\nh2 + h3 {text-align: right; font-size: 2.5em; margin-top: 0em}\nblockquote > blockquote {padding-left: 20%}\nblockquote > blockquote p {text-indent: 2em}\nblockquote > blockquote:first-child {text-indent: 0}',
 'extract_to': None,
 'flow_size': 260,
 'font_size_mapping': None,
 'footer_regex': u'(?i)(?<=<hr>)((\\s*<a name=\\d+></a>((<img.+?>)*<br>\\s*)?\\d+<br>\\s*.*?\\s*)|(\\s*<a name=\\d+></a>((<img.+?>)*<br>\\s*)?.*?<br>\\s*\\d+))(?=<br>)',
 'formatting_type': u'markdown',
 'header_regex': u'(?i)(?<=<hr>)((\\s*<a name=\\d+></a>((<img.+?>)*<br>\\s*)?\\d+<br>\\s*.*?\\s*)|(\\s*<a name=\\d+></a>((<img.+?>)*<br>\\s*)?.*?<br>\\s*\\d+))(?=<br>)',
 'html_unwrap_factor': 0.4,
 'input_encoding': None,
 'input_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.InputProfile object at 0x106fb5410>,
 'insert_blank_line': False,
 'insert_metadata': False,
 'isbn': None,
 'keep_ligatures': False,
 'language': None,
 'level1_toc': u'//h:h2[re:test(., ".*", "i")]',
 '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,
 'markdown_disable_toc': True,
 'max_toc_links': 50,
 'minimum_line_height': 0.0,
 'no_chapters_in_toc': False,
 'no_default_epub_cover': False,
 'no_inline_navbars': False,
 'no_svg_cover': False,
 'output_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.SonyReaderOutput object at 0x106fb5c10>,
 'page_breaks_before': u"//*[name()='h1' or name()='h2']",
 'paragraph_type': u'auto',
 'prefer_metadata_cover': False,
 'preprocess_html': True,
 'preserve_cover_aspect_ratio': False,
 'preserve_spaces': True,
 'pretty_print': True,
 'pubdate': None,
 'publisher': None,
 'rating': None,
 'read_metadata_from_opf': '/var/folders/Rm/Rm6mzVkCH6GuTtIFsFdGnU+++TI/-Tmp-/calibre_0.7.38_tmp_m6GdI6/calibre_0.7.38_6XKVK9.opf',
 'remove_first_image': False,
 'remove_footer': False,
 'remove_header': False,
 'remove_paragraph_spacing': False,
 'remove_paragraph_spacing_indent_size': 1.5,
 'series': None,
 'series_index': None,
 'smarten_punctuation': True,
 'tags': None,
 'timestamp': None,
 'title': None,
 'title_sort': None,
 'toc_filter': None,
 'toc_threshold': 6,
 'use_auto_toc': False,
 'verbose': 2}

And here's the working subset I've entered in the CLI:

ebook-convert Contact\ -\ Carl\ Sagan.txt Contact\ -\ Carl\ Sagan-text.epub --formatting-type=auto --paragraph-type=auto -v --debug-pipeline=/Users/leedolsen/calibredev/temp/ --extra-css='body{font-family: serif}\np {margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0.3em}\n.chapterheader {border: transparent; border-top:3px solid #000}\n.chapternum{font-size: 4em}\ndiv.sectionblock blockquote p {font-size: 85%; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em}\nblockquote {margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.3em}\np + blockquote {margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left:15%}\n.den {font-size: 80%;}\n.num {font-size: 80%; vertical-align:.5ex}\n.pb {page-break-before : always;}\n.sectionblock {width : 60%; margin-left : 35%; margin-top : 5em}\n.softbreak{display: block; text-align: center; letter-spacing: 2em; margin-top: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 1.2em}\np.initial {text-indent: 0;}\nspan.drop {font-size: 300%; font-weight: bold; line-height: .8; height: 1em; float: left; margin: -0.1em 0.125em -0.2em 0em;}\nspan.first {margin-left: -0.5em; white-space: pre; font-size: 80%; font-weight: bold}\nspan.firstafterA {margin-left: -0.75em; font-size: 80%; font-weight: bold}\nspan.firstafterL {margin-left: -1.2em; font-size: 80%; font-weight: bold}\nspan.smcps { white-space: pre; font-size: 80%}\np.initial + p {clear: left;}\nspan.predrop {font-size: 25%; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: top; line-height: 1.9;}\nh2 {text-align: right; margin-bottom: 0em}\nh2 + h3 {text-align: right; font-size: 2.5em; margin-top: 0em}\nblockquote > blockquote {padding-left: 20%}\nblockquote > blockquote p {text-indent: 2em}\nblockquote > blockquote:first-child {text-indent: 0}' --smarten-punctuation --preprocess-html

Any ideas as to what configured item might be causing the hang?

[kovidgoyal]

make a new book entry in the GUI and add the file to it and convert it with default conversion settings.

[ldolse]

That did work, thanks. However that does leave me a bit worried - why did that work, and am I going to have to do the same thing for other previously converted books in my library? Or is this just a side affect of the changes to txt conversion that were recently implemented?

[user_none]

Probably a side effect but I would be interested to know which option is causing the issue. Have you tried setting the same options in the new entry as in the old one to see if you can narrow down which is causing the slow down?

[ldolse]

I changed the options I cared about to the same settings in the new one. Initially the first book had been configured to use markdown, and with the 7.38 upgrade this changed to auto. I re-hard-coded it to markdown during the initial troubleshooting (which didn't make a difference).

The new book is still set to auto under text input, but the other settings have been manually changed to match the first book, to the best that I'm aware. It converts in about 30 seconds whereas the other one still hangs.