Kobo Browser not reading Calibre server

[paai]

Hi,

I have my calibre-server running without problems and I can access it with firefox from other computers or Android tablets. However, when I try to connect with the Kobo browser, it gets stuck on the progress bar.
Trying the mobile version of the server does not work either: nothing happens.

I am certain that Kobo is the culprit here, but is there a solution for the problem?

My calibre version is 3.14

(sorry, I looked for duplicate threads, could not find them. But improbable that I am the only one with this problem)

Paai

[davidfor]

What firmware version are you running? It is working with 4.7.10413 and has with the last three or four firmware releases. The browser was broken in various ways before that so that some sites worked, and others didn't. And anything before 4.4.x will not work with calibre v3 or later. And you do have to use the mobile site.

[paai]

Hi, My Kobo firmware (software) reports also as 4.7.10413. As I said, the mobile site of the calibre server does not react at all.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by paai

Hi, My Kobo firmware (software) reports also as 4.7.10413. As I said, the mobile site of the calibre server does not react at all.

Sorry, all I can say is that it is working perfectly here. When you access the mobile site are you typing in the URL or tapping the link on the loading page calibre presents? There should be a message to use the simple site under the progress bar. The link is the word "here".

[paai]

Yes, I did try both links. The only consolation is that I also have a homegrown server, which works as well but is not as polished as Calibre.

And of course it is irksome that something does not work as expected without a plain reason.

Paai

[kovidgoyal]

Look at the server log to see if the device is contacting the server or not.

[paai]

Hi Kovid. First kudos for your excellent program. This is a retired university professor in library science saying it :-)

The problem:

I start the server (3.15, from today!) on a Kubuntu machine with
$ sudo /usr/bin/calibre-server --port=8881 --userdb /home/paai/.config/calibre/server-users.sqlite --enable-auth --daemonize --log=/home/paai/.config/calibre/server.log

Other computers now can attach to the server without a problem, both regular and /mobile. So the calibre server works.

The Kobo Browser (software 4.7.10413) can attach to other servers on this Kubuntu machine such as Apache. So the Kobo works and there are no obvious firewal problems or the like.

The Calibre server shows the progress bar and the message that I can find a non-javascript version here (under /mobile) and stops.

Accessing the mobile version does nothing at all.

the logfile at /home/paai/.config/calibre/server.log says:

calibre server listening on 0.0.0.0:8881
OPDS feeds advertised via BonJour at: 192.168.178.25 port: 8881

and that is it.
But as I have another server that does work on the Kobo and allow me to fetch my books, it has no high urgency.


Paai

[Ken Maltby]

KOReader's OPDS support will also access the local calibre content server. You can place the books where the Kobo stock software can access them, if you don't want to read them with KOReader, or Coolreader, or even Plato now.

Luck;
Ken

[kovidgoyal]

You also need

--access-log

which will log all requests to the server. That will tell you if the kobo is reaching the server at /mobile or not

[paai]

Ah yes.

The request from the Kobo reaches the calibre server:

192.168.178.157 port-49730 - 05/jan/2018:18:06:37 +0100 "GET /mobile HTTP/1.1" 401 292
192.168.178.157 port-49731 - 05/jan/2018:18:06:49 +0100 "GET /mobile HTTP/1.1" 401 292

Now I see error 401, which is a authenticiation problem. I stopped the calibre server, which asks for username and password and started the calibre user interface and the server from there without authenticiation.

The Kobo now could reach calibre and get books from it. For good measure I also restarted the server without the userdb and tat worked too. So that narrows it down to the authenticiation.

I don't want my books exposed to the internet, but I need to access them from outside.

Paai

[davidfor]

I'd forgotten about that. The Kobo browser doesn't prompt for the username and password for this type of authentication. I've added the username and password to the bookmark for the calibre server. I did this a long time ago, so I'm pretty sure it's always been the case for the browser.

And interestingly enough, I've just tried the browser in other ereader, and it behaves in the same way.

[paai]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I'd forgotten about that. The Kobo browser doesn't prompt for the username and password for this type of authentication. I've added the username and password to the bookmark for the calibre server. I did this a long time ago, so I'm pretty sure it's always been the case for the browser.

And interestingly enough, I've just tried the browser in other ereader, and it behaves in the same way.

How then does the URL look like? I tried
http://hostname:8881/mobile/?usernam...sword=password


Oh, I got it:

http://usernameassword@myserver.com:8881/mobile

Great! Especially the unexpected smiley where colonP was written.

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by paai

Great! Especially the unexpected smiley where colonP was written.

http://username:password@myserver.com:8881/mobile

Just use the [noparse] ... [/noparse] tags to solve that