Calibre Is Not Viewing Books

[JusGellin]

I installed calibre like this:

@JusGellin

Try this (tested working here):

1. Install libxcb-cursor0 in Synaptic
2. In Terminal, run

Code: Select all

wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sudo sh /dev/stdin install_dir=/opt

3. Run calibre in /opt/calibre/

Note: Later create a .desktop file with Exec=/opt/calibre/calibre

But I can't get the viewer to open anything. Calibre installed ok and brings up the book listing but the viewer doesn't doesn't come up when selecting a book. What needs to be done besides?
Thanks

Edit:
I just noticed when opening Calibre up from the terminal it gives a message:
qt.qui.imageio: libpng warning: iCCP: known incoorect sRGB profile

When selecting the viewer, the terminal shows this:
[32730519/161602.17i6060:ERROR:zygote_host_impl_linux.cc(100)] Running as root without --no-sandbox is not supported. See https://crbug.com/638180.

So what can I do since it doesn't like running as root?

[sonny]

@JusGellin
Try this instead:

Code: Select all

wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sh /dev/stdin install_dir=/opt isolated=y

[JusGellin]

After I installed it, I tried running it from terminal. No errors when it came up.
But once I selected the Quick Start Guide and selected View, it again didn't bring the ereader up and in the terminal again said:
[11966........766903]:ERROR:zygote_host_impl_linux.cc(100)] Running as root without --no-sandbox is not supported. See https://crbug.com/638180.

[Jasper]

@JusGellin

You can try in terminal:

run-as-spot calibre

or if you have an existing .desktop entry, edit/add the following to it:

Exec=calibre --no-sandbox

[JusGellin]

Wanted to let both of you know that I can download Calibre properly and run it as Spot. It makes me run this like this with full path:
run-as-spot /opt/calibre/calibre

So the book Viewer now works.

Now, I'm trying to figure out how to install plugins. It's saying I don't have a new plugin, I am trying to install, in the correct plugin path. I'm having a bit of a problem with using permissions as well. I guess since I'm running this as Spot.

Thanks to both of you (@sonny and @Jasper) for your great help.

[Jasper]

@JusGellin

Glad you have it working at last.

If you use the --no-sandbox option, you will be running as root and therefore be able to install the plugins.

Remove the option and run the application as 'Spot'.

Hopefully that will work, goodluck

[JusGellin]

How can I run calibre with the --no-sandbox option from the terminal?

Also, how do I add this to the menu?
I've been just running it from the terminal so far.

[Jasper]

Download the plugin and leave it zipped up.

https://plugins.calibre-ebook.com/

Then in the GUI

Load the zip file by

Preferences -> Advanced -> Plug-ins -> Load plugin from file

Alternatively, I did provide a PET for Fossapup64 ........... it should be compatible with BW64.

It has the desktop entries under

Document

calibre-7.0.0

https://www.mediafire.com/file/l6few5j1 ... 4.pet/file

[JusGellin]

After I installed the calibre pet and selected it from the menu, nothing happens.

If it helps, from the terminal whenever i just run calibre nothing happens
But if I run /opt/calibre/calibre, it runs

It's being stubborn.

[JusGellin]

I edited the menu item for calibre and changed the Exec part from
Exec=/calibre
to
Exec=/opt/calibre/calibre

This worked to bring up the application. Plus I could add a book to it.

But when I try to load the plugin it gives an error
Error:No valid plugin path
then it gives the path I had for the plugin and says "not a valid plugin path"

Maybe I need to put the plugin in a certain path?

[bigpup]

Maybe the plug in needs to be located in opt/calibre

[JusGellin]

@bigpup
Thanks, but it turns out it is my not fully understanding how to add plugins. I found that when one is downloaded, it is supposed to be unzipped - I did that.
But then when using calibre to add the plugin, you are supposed to open that extractged folder and select the zip plugin inside of it. -- Now that works.

But now I'm back to where the reader doesn't come up. If I run it using the terminal it again says that "running as root without --no-sandbox is not supported"
I think I need to do this with the entry in the menu. I'm still not certain if this needs to run in spot or not.

[JusGellin]

It seems in order to make Calibre work, I had to run it as spot since it gave an error that it didn't like to run as root.
So I learned how to work with the menu to do that. It helped me when I needed to get Firefox to run as spot in the menu from before this.

Then in order to add a book or plugin I had to put whatever I wanted to add in the spot download directory to prevent permission problems.
I think it is working now. I'll check further to make sure.

Unless something else comes up I can say this was quite an adventure. It has helped me learn more by trying to make it work. I wish I was
better at finding logs when doing something to get the necessary clues. Although running Calbre from a terminal gave some good clues that
indicated it didn't like running as root.

I really appreciate the support I have gotten. Just to get some ideas from others really helps.

[Jasper]

I checked the directory structure of the PET I uploaded and it does not reside in

/opt

Strange, as my build works as Root

[JusGellin]

Mine was installed like this:
wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sh /dev/stdin install_dir=/opt isolated=y
If I'm reading this right it looks like it installed to /opt. I think that's a normal place that applications are sometimes installed in Linux.

How was yours installed? Since yours is running as root, does that pose any security problems? I wonder why my install complains about being root and yours doesn't.

When I use my Amazon Fire tablet, I usually keep it disconnected from the internet unless I need to download more books. But to have just one computer that has it all while traveling, would keep from having to carry so much stuff around.

I sure would like to understand this part better.
Thanks

[JusGellin]

I just saw something that could help others and what I intend to use when needed as well for this.
It shows how to get into debug mode once you are running Calibre.
<ctl>R------------------- Normal mode
<ctl><shf>R -----------Debug mode
<ctl><shft><alt>R--Safe mode

When I go went to debug mode, it indicated it would log this to /tmp/tmpwy0p61_m.txt

[JusGellin]

@Jasper
If I were to install Calibre to /root, would mine work just like yours without needing spot?
How could I install it to do this?
Thanks

[JusGellin]

I'm such a rookie to even try understanding what is going on. I think though I'm making some progress.
I've decided to reinstall Calibre on a fresh install of BookwormPup64_10.0.6.
1. Installed libxcb-cursor0 in Synaptic
2. In terminal, ran
wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sh /dev/stdin install_dir=/opt isolated=y
3. Ran Calibre
/opt/calibre/calibre
4. Add a new book to it -- worked ok
5. Add a new plugin -- worked ok
6. Select a book and select View button
Nothing happens
7. Make Calibre go to debug mode
<ctl><shf>R
8. Select view again - nothing happened again
9. Shut down Calibre
10.Looked at resulting debug log (see attached tmp85td55q1.txt)
It seems the only difference between just shutting down Calibre and selecting View in Calibre is this line:
[5620:5620:0522/074605.170846:ERROR:zygote_host_impl_linux.cc(100)] Running as root without --no-sandbox is not supported. See https://crbug.com/638180.

The error is referenced to the Chromium web site titled "Exit instead of crashing when running as root without --no-sandbox.". This is a very old error that occurred back in 2016.

So the problem is different than what I lead myself to think. It has something to do with just the viewer which evidently is Chromium.

Now how can I solve this problem which has to do with the viewer instead?
I hope someone may be able to help me figure that part out.
Thanks

[JusGellin]

In searching for a solution to the Calibre viewing problem, I found 2 topics that had the same problem with different Pups.
viewtopic.php?p=81989#p81989 - F96-CE_1 - 2/19/2023
viewtopic.php?p=8678#p8678 - Fossapup64_9.5 - 10/28/2020

The second one gave a resolution back in 10/28/2020.

Also I learned how to just run the viewer to get the error:
/opt/calibre/ebook-viewer
The problem is that when running calibre and ebook-viewer as root, that when running the ebook-viewer, it get this known error from back in 2016:
[5620:5620:0522/074605.170846:ERROR:zygote_host_impl_linux.cc(100)] Running as root without --no-sandbox is not supported. See https://crbug.com/638180.

The second link from above gave the solution back in 2020.
The fix was at /etc/profile.d
run
export QTWEBENGINE_CHROMIUM_FLAGS="--no-sandbox"

Now the Calibre viewer works as expected with the standard root install of it. It works really good.
Like the two pups above, BookwormPup64_10.0.6 has the same problem. How should this be reported to that board area?

I hope this can help anyone who wants to use this excellent product.

[mouldy]

I suggest making shortcut that just starts the viewer now that you found the CL command to do this. Its lot more pleasant than opening full app and then trying to make it just open a book to read. Its a big app that tries to do a lot of things.

[JusGellin]

Great suggestion! I like that.
Thanks