ConvertLit fails to convert

[pclady]

I have had my Sony for several months, and have always purchased my books through fictionwise as secure MS reader files, using ConvertLit GUI to remove DRM and calibre to convert with. ConvertLit is now showing failed errors when trying to downconvert the last two books I purchased, which was about a month ago. I was wondering if anyone had had this kind of trouble recently or had any suggestions as to why this might be happening all of a sudden. Right after I downloaded these two books, MS reader began to require activation everytime I opened it, so I have uninstalled and reinstalled it, then redownloaded the two books again. The activation notices disappeared, but I still get the failed to convert message. I am using Vista, and I have been successful in retrieving the keys from these books. I sent an email to the address posted on convertlit's website, but I did not receive a reply.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks so much.

[AnemicOak]

A while back some books (I think they were from Penguin) came out that C-Lit didn't work on. There was a "fixed" version floating around the net that worked with these. Not sure how you'd go about finding it though.

[JSWolf]

The solution is to use ConvertLIT to strip off the DRM and then use Calibre's lit2oeb to expland the LIT into it's component parts.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The solution is to use ConvertLIT to strip off the DRM and then use Calibre's lit2oeb to expland the LIT into it's component parts.

For the books I was referring to C-Lit wouldn't work period. A "fixed" version was needed.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

For the books I was referring to C-Lit wouldn't work period. A "fixed" version was needed.

Not even to just strip the DRM? I thought the DRM stripping worked fine regardless of the other bugs.

I do have the updated ConvertLIT. Kovid updated it before there was lit2oeb.

[kazbates]

I had a couple of books that wouldn't convert using the ConvertLIT GUI. (The exploded html files all had a size of 0.) I had to use the clit exe at the command line to keep from exploding the file which is what the GUI did. Once there, I used Calibre to convert the deDRM lit file into the lrf format for my Sony reader. This process was discussed in another thread here in MR which helped me enormously!
Kaz

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Not even to just strip the DRM? I thought the DRM stripping worked fine regardless of the other bugs.

I do have the updated ConvertLIT. Kovid updated it before there was lit2oeb.

Oh, you're right. The problem was after the DRM was stripped (using ver. 1.8) you couldn't convert or explode the book at the time. If lit2oeb fixes that, that's good to know.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by kazbates

I had a couple of books that wouldn't convert using the ConvertLIT GUI. (The exploded html files all had a size of 0.)

There is an option to downconvert with the GUI too.

BOb

[gwynevans]

Originally Posted by kazbates

I had a couple of books that wouldn't convert using the ConvertLIT GUI.

Note that there's the ConvertLIT GUI, and there's something else called the "ConvertLIT GUI". The first is a basic GUI that comes with ConvertLIT, while the second is a more full-featured GUI that provides access to more of the underlying command-line ConvertLIT application's functions.

If there are problems with ConvertLIT, it's often worth using the seperate "ConvertLIT GUI" to downconvert the book, removing the DRM, then using Calibre to convert it. (While ConvertLIT is what's used to do this, ConvertLIT's own GUI doesn't support the downconvert operation).