[Metadata Source Plugin] Baen

[kiwidude]

This plugin is for scraping book metadata from www.baen.com. This is a direct replacement for the Webscription plugin which is now deprecated and should be uninstalled.

Books that you previously linked with the "Webscription:" identifier will continue to work with this plugin, however any new metadata downloads will use a "Baen:" identifier instead.

Main Features:

• Can retrieve title, author, comments, publisher, publication date, rating and covers
• Also retrieves a Baen id, which can be used to directly jump to the page for a specific book from the book details pane.

Special Notes:

• Help Documentation
• Change History
• Requires Calibre 2.0.0 or later.

Paypal Donations:

• If you find this or any of my other plugins useful please feel free to show your appreciation. I have spent many hundreds of unpaid hours in their development and support so any encouragement for me to continue is appreciated!
  

[ownedbycats]

What is the exact url template of the baen: identifier? I already have a custom one named the same thing and want to make sure it's compatible.

[gbm]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

What is the exact url template of the baen: identifier? I already have a custom one named the same thing and want to make sure it's compatible.

Use baen:world-breakers the plugin will go to:


https://www.baen.com/world-breakers.html

bernie

[ownedbycats]

Thanks

[kiwidude]

Release Notes:
https://github.com/kiwidude68/calibr...ag/baen-v1.1.0

[gbm]

When querying Baen metadata get the following error:

Running identify query with parameters: 
{'title': 'Five by Five', 'authors': ['B. V. Larson', 'Aaron Allston', 'Kevin J Anderson', 'Loren Coleman', 'Michael A Stackpole'], 'identifiers': {'isbn': '9781614750499', 'amazon': 'B0B5WP49BC', 'baen': 'five-by-five', 'kobo': 'five-by-five-4'}, 'timeout': 30} 
Using plugins: Baen (1, 1, 0), Amazon.com (1, 3, 13) 
The log from individual plugins is below 

****************************** Baen (1, 1, 0) ****************************** 
Found 0 results 
Downloading from Baen took 0.1687028408050537 
_parse_search_results: matches= ['https://www.baen.com/five-by-five.html']
Baen url: 'https://www.baen.com/five-by-five.html'
Baen relevance: 1
Failed to make details query: 'https://www.baen.com/five-by-five.html'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "mechanize/_urllib2_fork.py", line 1236, in do_open
  File "http/client.py", line 1303, in request
  File "http/client.py", line 1349, in _send_request
  File "http/client.py", line 1298, in endheaders
  File "http/client.py", line 1058, in _send_output
  File "http/client.py", line 996, in send
  File "http/client.py", line 1475, in connect
  File "ssl.py", line 517, in wrap_socket
  File "ssl.py", line 1104, in _create
  File "ssl.py", line 1382, in do_handshake
ssl.SSLCertVerificationError: [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:1016)

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "calibre_plugins.baen.worker", line 42, in get_details
    raw = self.browser.open_novisit(self.url, timeout=self.timeout).read().strip()
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "mechanize/_mechanize.py", line 241, in open_novisit
  File "mechanize/_mechanize.py", line 287, in _mech_open
  File "mechanize/_opener.py", line 193, in open
  File "mechanize/_urllib2_fork.py", line 425, in _open
  File "mechanize/_urllib2_fork.py", line 414, in _call_chain
  File "calibre/utils/browser.py", line 29, in https_open
  File "mechanize/_urllib2_fork.py", line 1240, in do_open
urllib.error.URLError: <urlopen error [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:1016)>

bernie

[DNSB]

Your log seems to indicate an SSL certificate error. I'm also getting this on my Windows 11 machine though I am not getting the second SSL certificate error.

Spoiler:

Running identify query with parameters: 
{'title': 'Five by Five', 'authors': ['B. V. Larson', 'Aaron Allston', 'Kevin J Anderson', 'Loren Coleman', 'Michael A Stackpole'], 'identifiers': {'isbn': '9781614750499', 'amazon_ca': 'B0B5WP49BC'}, 'timeout': 30} 
Using plugins: Baen (1, 1, 0), Kobo Metadata (1, 12, 0), Smashwords Metadata (1, 0, 2), Amazon.com (1, 3, 13) 
The log from individual plugins is below 

****************************** Baen (1, 1, 0) ****************************** 
Found 0 results 
Downloading from Baen took 0.7126452922821045 
Querying: https://www.baen.com/allbooks?q=Five+by+Five
Failed to make identify query: 'https://www.baen.com/allbooks?q=Five+by+Five'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "mechanize\_urllib2_fork.py", line 1236, in do_open
  File "http\client.py", line 1303, in request
  File "http\client.py", line 1349, in _send_request
  File "http\client.py", line 1298, in endheaders
  File "http\client.py", line 1058, in _send_output
  File "http\client.py", line 996, in send
  File "http\client.py", line 1475, in connect
  File "ssl.py", line 517, in wrap_socket
  File "ssl.py", line 1104, in _create
  File "ssl.py", line 1382, in do_handshake
ssl.SSLCertVerificationError: [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:1016)

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "calibre_plugins.baen.__init__", line 107, in identify
  File "mechanize\_mechanize.py", line 241, in open_novisit
  File "mechanize\_mechanize.py", line 287, in _mech_open
  File "mechanize\_opener.py", line 193, in open
  File "mechanize\_urllib2_fork.py", line 425, in _open
  File "mechanize\_urllib2_fork.py", line 414, in _call_chain
  File "d:\calibre\calibre-master\src\calibre\utils\browser.py", line 29, in https_open
  File "mechanize\_urllib2_fork.py", line 1240, in do_open
urllib.error.URLError:  

********************************************************************************

[kiwidude]

Perhaps something to do with your Windows 11 machines? On Windows 10 for me it is working fine.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by kiwidude

Perhaps something to do with your Windows 11 machines? On Windows 10 for me it is working fine.

As far as I am aware, @gbm is running Linux (Mint??). I get the same error using SUSE Tumbleweed as with Windows 11.

[gbm]

Yes and I have run update-ca-certificates still have teh problem. The first week of august is the last time I know it worked.

bernie

Edit:

8/7/2025 was when the Baen CA was renewed.

Originally Posted by DNSB

As far as I am aware, @gbm is running Linux (Mint??). I get the same error using SUSE Tumbleweed as with Windows 11.