Valid ePub, but not valid enough for iBooks

[MichaelGray]

Hello

Wondering if anybody else has experienced this problem.

I'm working on a batch of ePub files originally generated from InDesign and then edited in Calibre. I'm now trying to get them into Apple's iBooks using the iTunes Producer app. On doing so, we're told ERROR ITMS-9000, unmanifested file "calibre_bookmarks.txt". I opened up the ePub to delete this unmanifested file (maybe that was a bad idea...) and checked that the file validated, which it did. So in theory, I think, that should be OK for iBooks - but instead I'm now getting "Invalid URI in NCX file".

Any ideas anyone?

Also interested, by the way, in experiences with iTunes Producer. We've tried to upload two titles so far - one is sitting on iTunes connect as "pending" (I wonder for how long?) and the other, though apparently uploaded (and reuploaded) successfully doesn't appear at all. Maybe Apple are having a bit of a backlog?

Thanks
Michael

[charleski]

Originally Posted by MichaelGray

I'm working on a batch of ePub files originally generated from InDesign and then edited in Calibre. I'm now trying to get them into Apple's iBooks using the iTunes Producer app. On doing so, we're told ERROR ITMS-9000, unmanifested file "calibre_bookmarks.txt". I opened up the ePub to delete this unmanifested file (maybe that was a bad idea...)

That's just a file that calibre's reader adds to provide support for bookmarks without having to maintain them in a separate database. Perfectly safe to delete it.

and checked that the file validated, which it did. So in theory, I think, that should be OK for iBooks - but instead I'm now getting "Invalid URI in NCX file".

Could you post the epub's .ncx file? (It only contains the chapter names, so there shouldn't be a copyright issue.) ePubcheck does basic link-checking, so that shouldn't be an issue, but there might be some odd character in there causing a problem.

Quite a lot of problems people have reported end up boiling down to character-encoding issues, which is why I'd recommend using Sigil to do the editing instead, as it's strict about enforcing UTF-8 in the current version.

[gkovler]

i, too, am getting an error at the end of the long itunes producer process. i have now been on the phone with apple for 47 minutes and am getting nowhere. if you have found any help for this, can you post? thanks. gail

[Fabe]

I got the same error. I've been working on creating a "pristine" epub for Apple. I'll keep checking bach here and let you know if it works.

[charleski]

Well the original poster never came back, so I assume he fixed his problem. It's impossible to tell what's causing the problem without seeing your .ncx file. But, as before, messed-up characters (improper coding, spaces being turned into %20's, etc) are the most likely cause.

[Fabe]

Charleski - I often have code with %20s in place of spaces I've typed. Should I be using an underscore instead? Thx.

[charleski]

Yes, probably safer, though the real problem is whatever software you have that can't deal with spaces in file names.

[MichaelGray]

Originally Posted by charleski

Well the original poster never came back, so I assume he fixed his problem. It's impossible to tell what's causing the problem without seeing your .ncx file. But, as before, messed-up characters (improper coding, spaces being turned into %20's, etc) are the most likely cause.

Hello again - sorry for going silent, got distracted by something else. Alas I'm still not quite there. I can't post the file as it would identify the book and I'm not sure its owner would want that, but I think you're definitely on the right track – I've had a similar problem on another file which I did eventually manage to get on to iTunes. However I'm not quite sure how I fixed it... Is there a way I can actually see the offending characters easily and change them to what they should be?

[charleski]

The URIs in the ncx file are fairly easy to spot:

...
            <navPoint id="navPoint-6" playOrder="6">
                <navLabel>
                    <text>4</text>
                </navLabel>
                <content src="Text/Section0007.xhtml"/>
            </navPoint>
...

You need to check that these filepaths precisely match what's actually in your epub.

I would recommend you run it through epubcheck separately, as that will give the line number on which the error occurred.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by charleski

The URIs in the ncx file are fairly easy to spot:

...
            <navPoint id="navPoint-6" playOrder="6">
                <navLabel>
                    <text>4</text>
                </navLabel>
                <content src="Text/Section0007.xhtml"/>
            </navPoint>
...

You need to check that these filepaths precisely match what's actually in your epub.

Nothe that the paths are relative to where the OPF file is located, thus, if the OPF is "OEBPS/content.opf", the above path would refer to "OEBPS/Text/Section0007.xhtml"

[MichaelGray]

Thanks for that charleski and Jellby.

I've had a close look at the file but I just can't see any link that doesn't match up. In the NCX I have...

<navPoint class="chapter" id="932a1cb0-ec5c-4a75-ac02-9ef00e71d591" playOrder="58">
<navLabel>
<text>Also available</text>
</navLabel>
<content src="OEBPS/split_017.xhtml#also-available"/>
</navPoint>

...and in that file I have a...

<p class="also-available-title" id="also-available">Also available</p>

Don't normally have problems with broken links but I must be missing something obvious here?

Still seems odd that the file validates in epubcheck but is rejected by iTunes Producer.

Best
Michael

[charleski]

Just a thought - have you tried removing the hyphen from the fragment id? Hyphens are legal in fragment ids, but Apple doesn't always follow the standards completely.

[eBookNoir]

Line 105 column 29: unfinished element - i'm getting this error with itunes producer, anyone come across it before? cannot for the life of me figure it out, looked at it so many ways, I'm sure I'm missing something simple. Any help would be great, thanks.

[st_albert]

Originally Posted by eBookNoir

Line 105 column 29: unfinished element - i'm getting this error with itunes producer, anyone come across it before? cannot for the life of me figure it out, looked at it so many ways, I'm sure I'm missing something simple. Any help would be great, thanks.

When I've gotten this via epubcheck, it means I've not specified one or more of:

author
title
publisher

in the metadata. (i.e. within content.opf in the epub archive) I've no clue if this is your problem, just thought I'd post it as it wasn't obvious to me from the error message, just what was lacking.

HTH

[MichaelGray]

Hello all
Just had this from Apple support:

All characters in the URIs must be valid. Non-alphanumeric characters must be properly encoded. For example, a space should be encoded as '%20'. The problem most often surfaces in URIs in the NCX files.

For more information, refer to Metadata, File Formats and Cataloging in the iBookstore FAQS. Thanks!

The ref to the FAQ's is quite handy as well (within iTunes connect) - it seems to have been expanded, last time I looked there were only two questions (both about using iBooks rather than making things for it!)

Will investigate further and post any progress.

@eBookNoir I'm sure you've thought of this, but I think I've had that error with missing out a closing tag in the TOC or in the HTML files. If the latter, you could try validating each file at http://validator.w3.org (or with the developer toolbar in Firefox) to pinpoint the error. Hope that helps...

Michael