[GUI Plugin] FanFicFare

[ownedbycats]

Look up in the thread, were all getting it

[TeaLover]

Hi,

I'm getting 'File is not a zip file' when trying to download specific stories. It's always the same ones and after looking at this thread, I tried restarting my computer. Didn't work.

When I turned on my computer after restarting it, calibre said that my library was corrupted and needed to be checked.

I store my library on Onedrive so I can share it between my laptop and my PC. Just came back from a vacation where I used the laptop to update my library overseas, just came back yesterday and PC has been giving me those errors since then.

Error posted below from log

Status
Title
Author
Comment
URL
Error
Little Hunter
3ndless
File is not a zip file
https://forums.spacebattles.com/thre...plete.1087983/

Edit: Updating metadata and then trying to download does not work. Nor does trying to download as a new book or overwriting the existing book.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by TeaLover

I store my library on Onedrive so I can share it between my laptop and my PC. Just came back from a vacation where I used the laptop to update my library overseas, just came back yesterday and PC has been giving me those errors since then.

Don't do that! Calibre does not handle cloud storages.

[TeaLover]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Don't do that! Calibre does not handle cloud storages.

Does that mean I should delete the books that get the errors and re-download them?

[JimmXinu]

As ownedbycats said, Calibre is known to have various issues with cloud file stores. The general advice is "Don't."

An epub format ebook is a zip file following certain standards for contents. If your epub isn't recognized as a zip file anymore, there's nothing FanFicFare can do about.

Instead of using FFF's update feature, change the mode to Overwrite Always for the books that have this problem. That's at least a bit easier than deleting and then re-downloading.

[JimmXinu]

New Test Version Posted

2025-01-18
- Strip out unused parts of requests_toolbelt to avoid dependency issues. #1145

[MidwestJen]

I'll add my voice to the AO3 errors that have been occurring after the big delay that they had a week or so ago (when it took approx 1 min per story to grab metadata). The error I keep getting is this (I use an email pull for updates):

Error https://archiveofourown.org/works/62013442 HTTP Error in FFF '429 Client Error: Too Many Requests for url: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62013442?view_full_work=true&view_adult=true'(429)

If I add them all separately, then they'll go through fine. This particular error was from a new update (a new story in a series), but of the 3 errors I got this last download, 2 were new and 1 was just a regular update. So not sure what is tying them together. They're not all rated "E", at least one is a "M". In terms of the emails, they were the most recent, the next recent, then skipped one for the 4th recent. So I can't even say they were the last? first? ones that FFF requested from AO3.

Not sure if that helps narrow down what the issue is. It doesn't for me, but every little bit helps, right? LOL

Also, thank you for your work on this plugin. Without it, my huge library would be such a pain to administer. You deserve all the stars.

[JimmXinu]

Default setting for AO3 is slow_down_sleep_time:2

Does it help if that's doubled?

[JDesat]

Weird question since I'm only noticing it on some fics and not others (specifically on QQ forum, so I don't want to post links here), but I've noticed that some of the fics I download from QQ have the summary put into Calibre as the summary, but others just put the first part of the first threadmark as the summary. If that makes sense. Is there a setting I can change? I know in the past I had to set special rules for certain fics that I wanted the first post redownloaded every time I updated the fic with FFF, but that was only on a few fics.

QQ never used to have the summary section, as far as I remember, but when they upgraded the forum last year that started. I never noticed an issue with it before, but there's been a few fics in the last couple months that have done this.

[Elaine T]

Originally Posted by MidwestJen

I'll add my voice to the AO3 errors that have been occurring after the big delay that they had a week or so ago (when it took approx 1 min per story to grab metadata). The error I keep getting is this (I use an email pull for updates):

Error https://archiveofourown.org/works/62013442 HTTP Error in FFF '429 Client Error: Too Many Requests for url: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62013442?view_full_work=true&view_adult=true'(429)

Me, too. I just use fff from calibre and the error I've been seeing is:
HTTP Error in FFF '502 Server Error: Bad Gateway for url: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lo...=true'(502)


I also greatly appreciate your plugins and all your work on them.

[JimmXinu]

Originally Posted by JDesat

Weird question since I'm only noticing it on some fics and not others (specifically on QQ forum, so I don't want to post links here), but I've noticed that some of the fics I download from QQ have the summary put into Calibre as the summary, but others just put the first part of the first threadmark as the summary. If that makes sense. Is there a setting I can change? I know in the past I had to set special rules for certain fics that I wanted the first post redownloaded every time I updated the fic with FFF, but that was only on a few fics.

QQ never used to have the summary section, as far as I remember, but when they upgraded the forum last year that started. I never noticed an issue with it before, but there's been a few fics in the last couple months that have done this.

Correct.

The Xenforo forum sites have grown many story-centric features over the years. One of them is a thread description that's associated with the threadmarks.

FFF stores that in the metadata entry threadmarks_description and, if use_threadmarks_description:true is set (on by default), will use that for description.

Otherwise, FFF will take the first description_limit chars (default:1000) of the first threadmark as the description. (description_limit applies to all stories, not just xenforo.)

You can turn off use_threadmarks_description to only ever use first post.

Checking a few stories looking for one with a threadmark desc, it looks like the sites may have also copied the beginning of the first threadmark...

[JDesat]

I have use_threadmarks_description:true in the default.ini, but I'm not sure if what I posted earlier made sense.

The most recent story the issue happened with is "Through Realms Apart" on QQ (it's in the NSFW creative writing section so I'm not linking it, but it only has one chapter that I don't think has any NSFW stuff in it). At the top of the thread it has the "Created at", "Index Progress", "Watchers", etc. sections but below that has this summary of the fic:

Transfered into a Unas-Goa'uld hybrid, an out of his depth SI must struggle to manage an incomplete Ha'tak equipped with a reality drive, while balancing his immense greed. Armed only with lies and a daring heart (and some really big guns), he will attempt to seize everything he's ever wanted.

This summary is not used as the fic summary in the epub FFF makes. Instead it's using the first 1000 characters of the first threadmarked post. If I change use_threadmark_description to false will that fix things? Is there something else I need to do? Or nothing set up at this time to grab that summary?

[JimmXinu]

Ah! I see it now.

tl;dr: Put minimum_threadmarks:1 in personal.ini. Whether for [base_xenforoforum] (to affect all XF sites), the QQ site section, or that one story individually is up to you.

The long answer calls for a bit of a history lesson.

When FFF first implemented support for SB/SV/etc, threadmarks were still very new. Many story threads still had a list of post URLs in the first post that was the chapter index.

It was common for a while, for the thread OP to create a only single threadmark to the index post. Which meant FFF suddenly thought the chapter list only had one entry. So the minimum_threadmarks setting was added with a default of 2.

And that thread only has 1 threadmark. So FFF ignores the threadmarks block, which includes the other threadmark-associated metadata.

BTW, thanks for helping keep NSFW links out of the thread, I appreciate it.

It might be worth changing the default value to 1 at this point.

[JDesat]

Originally Posted by JimmXinu

Ah! I see it now.

When FFF first implemented support for SB/SV/etc, threadmarks were still very new. Many story threads still had a list of post URLs in the first post that was the chapter index.

It was common for a while, for the thread OP to create a only single threadmark to the index post.

Ya, sorry my explanation sucked! lol

Thanks for replying so quickly and for the quick fix I can implement!

I've only actually been reading fanfic on forums for 5 or so years because... well, I don't really interact in the threads and I'm only interested in the story, and when threadmarks weren't a thing (or weren't commonly used, at least), trying to read on forums was a massive pain. I know FFF is able to get the links from index posts, because I've done that for several older stories (and you're amazing for putting that functionality into FFF), but I definitely prefer properly threadmarked stories like most have been in the last few years.

FFF is amazing, and I'm truly grateful that you created and maintain it. Keep up the great work, man!