HELP! Have lost ability to read epubs, not only with Calibre's viewer, but with Adobe

[kovidgoyal]

At this point I suggest you do a windows clean re-install thats sometimes the easiest way to fix such issues.

[DNSB]

I think you may want to do a clean reinstall of Windows since you are having so many errors. Easiest way is to use Recovery in the Settings app.

[lburg801]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I think you may want to do a clean reinstall of Windows since you are having so many errors. Easiest way is to use Recovery in the Settings app.

I actually started this with a clean install. The problems were there from the beginning. Maddening. Now I'm working with my old ThinkPad X250 starting from a clean install of Win10Pro. So far, ADE4.5 will not convert ascm files to epub nor will an older ADE version (3.0).

The history of my problems began on the Thinkpad that had been upgraded from Win7 to Win10. All programs worked for a couple of years after the upgrade to Win10. I think an automatic update of Win10 started the problem. I just did a clean install of Win10Pro on the laptop and Calibre will open generic epubs with its Viewer just fine.

I'm stuck with just getting audiobooks from the library until they come up with a fix for the Adobe not working in Win10Pro and Win11Pro. Since Adobe has abandoned this program, the fix, if there ever is one, will have to come from Microsoft.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by lburg801

Woo-hoo! That worked!

Now what do I do? Anyway to have it discover my existing libraries in Calibre?

And what does that tell those of you who understand how all this works?

What about DeDRM. Is that possible? My head has been spinning through this whole process. Before the C19 epidemic I was making patreon donations to Kovid Goyal. I guess it's time I stepped up again.

And someone needs to let Adobe know that they need to make changes as that is the public library's default app for epubs.

Copy the existing settings for calibre into the settings directory for the portable version.

The settings you want to copy are in C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Roaming\calibre

The XXXX is the directory for your computer's profile.

Copy the contents of the calibre directory to the settings directory of your portable version. That will copy off of your settings and plugins and you'll see your libraries. I've done that before when using a portable version.

[theducks]

If any non-calibre app is also having these issues,,

your computer has issues that need to be solved. Calibre is just another victim.

[lburg801]

Originally Posted by theducks

If any non-calibre app is also having these issues,,

your computer has issues that need to be solved. Calibre is just another victim.

I confess to having wondered if there might be some problematic hardware component in my Lenovo ThinkCentre as this unit was sold as refurbished and is no longer made. It looks brand new and all the tests and scans I ran that are meant to detect problems found none. Truth is the PC is lightening fast and runs all my other software without a single problem. And my old Lenovo ThinkPad ran all these programs without problems until a Win10 update created havoc.

Since Aquila Reader works without any problems and the mobile version of Calibre works without a problem, I believe that it is a Windows problem.

Unfortunately, the public library uses OverDrive which relies on an Adobe product that is no longer updated or supported and clearly doesn't work in newer Windows versions.

Since I started with a clean install of Win11Pro and the problems were there from the start and also occur, even when booted in safe mode, whatever the conflict is has not been revealed.

I'm still passionate about Calibre and while I remain disappointed in not being able to resolve the problem, I've passed on details of the problems I've encountered here and with OverDrive (about Adobe) and will be gratefully using Calibre's portable version!

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by lburg801

Unfortunately, the public library uses OverDrive which relies on an Adobe product that is no longer updated or supported and clearly doesn't work in newer Windows versions.

An ancient ADE 2.0 works on my Windows 10 computer, so as with Calibre, it's apparently not recent Windows versions that are the problem, but something specific to your computer. Otherwise ADE would not work on any Windows 10/11 machine and that's clearly not the case.

[theducks]

It may be Hardware.
It maybe Drivers (wrong or no update available).

For over a year, I could not get the video on my Dell 780 to go above 1024 and stay.

SFC /scannow did not fix that. It was only by accident, that another installation app complained that my X-video had problems.
SFC did not check that.

A simple download from M$ and my old Dell was working (I had purchased a Refurb as a replacement).

Neither can do W11. Both run W10 Pro. The older one was W7 when I got it.

The Dell 780 does not like Calibre 7.17 (viewer just spins)

[lburg801]

Originally Posted by theducks

It may be Hardware.
It maybe Drivers (wrong or no update available).

For over a year, I could not get the video on my Dell 780 to go above 1024 and stay.

SFC /scannow did not fix that. It was only by accident, that another installation app complained that my X-video had problems.
SFC did not check that.

A simple download from M$ and my old Dell was working (I had purchased a Refurb as a replacement).

Neither can do W11. Both run W10 Pro. The older one was W7 when I got it.

The Dell 780 does not like Calibre 7.17 (viewer just spins)

I've updated the drivers, but it is an auto update done by Lenovo after a scan to see what is needed. I guess there is some possibility that the flaw lies there.

I had intended to give my old laptop, the ThinkPad to someone for light use. Really, I could do everything with it until the USB's lost their 3.0 function. But oh, it was slow. I had upgraded it from Win7 to Win10 and everything worked great unit I was unable to open epubs in the Viewer or ADE. At any rate, for now I think I'll do a clean install of Win7 on it and use it to download books from the library! If I don't update to Win10, it should work okay. For years ADE worked just great on it, as did Calibre.

For now I'm thrilling to the speed of the ThinkCentre. Everything is fast. On my old Thinkpad, Firefox took forever to load but now it's ready in a matter of seconds. And portable Calibre is wonderful.

Whatever the cause of the quirk that impacts ADE and Kindle will likely remain a mystery unless I try installing ADE again at some point to see it any Win11 updates or driver updates from Lenovo have fixed the problem.

[lburg801]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

An ancient ADE 2.0 works on my Windows 10 computer, so as with Calibre, it's apparently not recent Windows versions that are the problem, but something specific to your computer. Otherwise ADE would not work on any Windows 10/11 machine and that's clearly not the case.

Well, both my old and "new to me" computers are Lenovo products. @theducks described how a missing driver (I think) was the cause of a problem that had not been detected by any scans but by a new app complaining that something that it needed was missing. Since Lenovo did automatic scans and updates on my old Lenovo ThinkPad, perhaps that had taken place as well as the Win update. All Ii know is that after years of no problems I was suddenly unable to open epubs with anything but the Calibre editor. And if it is a problem with some Lenovo driver, I suppose it could cause the same difficulty with the ThinkCentre. No idea. I'm just grateful that as a result of posting about my problem I learned about the portable version of Calibre. It works perfectly! So while not a perfect ending, it is a happy one, nonetheless.

[theducks]

Portable working is what has me baffled.
If something was wrong with a driver, that does not get fixed by going Portable.

Something in the Configuration folder of the computer is not right. Unless you copied it to Portable, it has a fresh, version.

[lburg801]

Originally Posted by theducks

Portable working is what has me baffled.
If something was wrong with a driver, that does not get fixed by going Portable.

Something in the Configuration folder of the computer is not right. Unless you copied it to Portable, it has a fresh, version.

Well, the problem started in the old computer and I copied and pasted the configuration file from it's Roaming folder to the Roaming folder before installing Calibre. Do you suppose I brought the problem along with that? I didn't use that folder to set up the portable version.

[lburg801]

Originally Posted by theducks

Portable working is what has me baffled.
If something was wrong with a driver, that does not get fixed by going Portable.

Something in the Configuration folder of the computer is not right. Unless you copied it to Portable, it has a fresh, version.

But wait. It isn't just Calibre's e-book reader that suddenly was unable to open epubs. Adobe couldn't either. And here on my new PC Kindle can't either. Back to either Windows or some Lenovo quirk.

[DNSB]

One video driver issue is that Lenovo is very conservative with their video driver updates. My current desktop has a NVidia T1000 8GB card and Lenovo's supplied driver is about 4 months older than the conservative driver from NVidia's site. Before that update was added to Lenovo's site, they were about 9 months behind NVidia's conservative driver.

Though the portable version of calibre working and multiple programs being unable to open ePub files suggests something in your Windows setup and not a driver issue.

[lburg801]

@kovidgoyal, @theducks, @Sirtel, @Martinoptic, @JSWolf, @PeterT
In continued exchanges and chat about the irony that Portable Calibre worked there was frequent mention of there being something wrong with the configuration.

I did not use the existing config file (in Roaming) when I set up Portable. I just added each library to it yet someone had said that I could have set up the Portable using that folder.

Wondering, if I had done that, if the problem would have been imported. I renamed the existing folder xcalibre (hope there are some of you thinking of excalibur, as that is what I suddenly thought of) and opened my original Calibre and TA! DA! It works perfectly!

So many red herrings in the water! Of course, this does not fix the problem with Adobe and Kindle.

But wait. I just noticed that the Calibre folder I renamed was in my User folder and not in the AppData\Roaming folder. I'm so confused. And the Calibre Portable folder is there, too. Did I do that? There is a Calibre folder in Roaming.