Problem with Calibre 3.48 and Kindle PaperWhite 11 SE

[Bussengeist]

Hello everyone! Nice to meet you and thank you for having me.

I was about to reply to an existing thread, but I encountered a note suggested me that, since it was an old post, started one new.

The situation is this: me beloved Kindle Voyage died a few weeks ago ("Device: SE Blank Megrez"), and my wife bought me a Kindle PaperWhite 11 Signature Edition.

I'm running Calibre 7.6 at home with no problems, but my office PC runs on Windows 7. For the moment, it is not possible to upgrade Windows and even less likely to ask for a new computer. So Windows 7 is all I got. With Calibre 3.48, of course.

What I'd like to know -if you can help me- is if there is a way I can make Calibre 3.48 recognize my new Kindle. I copied the files from Calibre 7.6 at home and brought them here, but I have no idea which file contains the drivers or whatever Calibre uses to recognize devices. I also have no idea if this could work.

I know I can use it at home, but I tend to use ir primarily here, so it would be great if you can take the time to tell me how to tweek this 3.48 with the devices database from the 7.6 (or any other solution that allows me to use this new Kindle at word).

Thank you very much in advance!

[Sirtel]

While I'm not aware of any method to get Calibre 3.48 recognize a 11th gen. Paperwhite (doesn't mean there isn't one), you don't actually need direct connection with Calibre to get the books on the PW. Use the Save to Disk feature in Calibre to save the books to your chosen location on the local drive and drag them to the documents folder on your Kindle from there.

[theducks]

Moving a 7.x library to 3.x , 4.x and even 5.x
runs risks. You might have gotten away with it for now, but do NOT try to move back. Not only has the code (and features) evolved, but those in 7.x allow things the earlier versions did not. Some required database changes to store additional info.

Is the W7 machine 32 Bit ? That limits options.

64bit: Consider booting Linux on a USB drive or fast stick (no mods to the host if it allows a USB boot)

[Bussengeist]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

While I'm not aware of any method to get Calibre 3.48 recognize a 11th gen. Paperwhite (doesn't mean there isn't one), you don't actually need direct connection with Calibre to get the books on the PW. Use the Save to Disk feature in Calibre to save the books to your chosen location on the local drive and drag them to the documents folder on your Kindle from there.

Thank you, Sirtel.

The thing is I wanted to keep both my "Kindle" libraries (home and work) syncronized, and if I move a file with Save to Disk (or with Windows Explorer),

(There's a "Bussengeist" library where I place books already read and TBR, and then a "Kindle" library where I put only those I have in the Kindle).

I guess I'll have to use Calibre only at home... at least until they give me a new PC at work. It's not too bad, I know... it's just that it was nicer to be able to use both.

[Bussengeist]

Originally Posted by theducks

Moving a 7.x library to 3.x , 4.x and even 5.x
runs risks. You might have gotten away with it for now, but do NOT try to move back. Not only has the code (and features) evolved, but those in 7.x allow things the earlier versions did not. Some required database changes to store additional info.

Is the W7 machine 32 Bit ? That limits options.

64bit: Consider booting Linux on a USB drive or fast stick (no mods to the host if it allows a USB boot)

Thank you, theducks!

I didn't move a Calibre library. What I was trying to do is learn in which file Calibre keeps its device data (let's say it's called "devices.something"). Then copy said file from the 7.6 at home (that includes my new Kindle) and replace the old (3.4) devices.somthing in the same folder.

I know it would probably not work... but all I'd have to do is to previously backup the whole Calibre folder, and restore it if things didn't work. It doesn't matter that much, anyway, because I won't be using Calibre at work since I can't organize my Kindle from there anymore.

[Bussengeist]

Thenks for your reply, theducks!

Originally Posted by theducks

Moving a 7.x library to 3.x , 4.x and even 5.x
runs risks. You might have gotten away with it for now, but do NOT try to move back. Not only has the code (and features) evolved, but those in 7.x allow things the earlier versions did not. Some required database changes to store additional info.

Oh, but I haven't moved a library. What I wanted to know is the name of the file (let's say "devices.something") where Calibre keeps tha devices data or drivers; then I would copy the 7.6 version of that file from my home installation and replaced said file at work, over the one from the 3.48 installation, so it then would be able to recognize my new Kindle. All I had to do, just in case it didn't work, was to replaced with a previously backed up "devices.somthing". It would be a very long shot, I know. But, in my experience, these data containers don't usually change that much between versions (except in cases where they only contain drivers and the index of devices is inside a kind of file that do change between versions).

Originally Posted by theducks

Is the W7 machine 32 Bit ? That limits options.

Yup... unfortunately, it is.

Originally Posted by theducks

64bit: Consider booting Linux on a USB drive or fast stick (no mods to the host if it allows a USB boot)

Thank you for this, but the goal was easyness and comfort: if I have to reboot everytime I have a couple of minutes to use Calibre... it would be just unpractical.

[Sirtel]

I'm pretty sure this wouldn't work. There have been lots of folks here over the years, asking the same thing, and I have never seen anything like that suggested by the calibre gurus here.

[theducks]

Think of all the effort needed to make (and deliver) back version compatible device drivers for 3 OS

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I'm pretty sure this wouldn't work. There have been lots of folks here over the years, asking the same thing, and I have never seen anything like that suggested by the calibre gurus here.

If you take a look at the Kobo forums, before he passed away, @davidfor backported newer Kobo devices into a modified driver called KoboTouch348. Others have since added other new Kobo devices to the code. There is a discussion of the KTE driver being modified to inherit from the KoboTouch348 driver instead of the standard KoboTouch driver to allow use of the on the fly generation of kepubs. See Kobo Touch Driver for calibre 3.48 for more about that driver.

In theory the same could be done for the Kindle driver and older calibre versions but so far the only person I'm aware of who was looking at doing so ended up moving to a new computer and the project got dumped into the bit bucket. As far as I recall, even the first step of backporting the driver from calibre 6.2's Python 3 to Python 2 hadn't been completed.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

If you take a look at the Kobo forums, before he passed away, @davidfor backported newer Kobo devices into a modified driver called KoboTouch348. Others have since added other new Kobo devices to the code. There is a discussion of the KTE driver being modified to inherit from the KoboTouch348 driver instead of the standard KoboTouch driver to allow use of the on the fly generation of kepubs. See Kobo Touch Driver for calibre 3.48 for more about that driver.

In theory the same could be done for the Kindle driver and older calibre versions but so far the only person I'm aware of who was looking at doing so ended up moving to a new computer and the project got dumped into the bit bucket. As far as I recall, even the first step of backporting the driver from calibre 6.2's Python 3 to Python 2 hadn't been completed.

Yes, I'm aware it was done with the Kobo driver, but AFAIK it has never been done with the Kindle driver.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Bussengeist

Hello everyone! Nice to meet you and thank you for having me.

I was about to reply to an existing thread, but I encountered a note suggested me that, since it was an old post, started one new.

The situation is this: me beloved Kindle Voyage died a few weeks ago ("Device: SE Blank Megrez"), and my wife bought me a Kindle PaperWhite 11 Signature Edition.

I'm running Calibre 7.6 at home with no problems, but my office PC runs on Windows 7. For the moment, it is not possible to upgrade Windows and even less likely to ask for a new computer. So Windows 7 is all I got. With Calibre 3.48, of course.

What I'd like to know -if you can help me- is if there is a way I can make Calibre 3.48 recognize my new Kindle. I copied the files from Calibre 7.6 at home and brought them here, but I have no idea which file contains the drivers or whatever Calibre uses to recognize devices. I also have no idea if this could work.

I know I can use it at home, but I tend to use ir primarily here, so it would be great if you can take the time to tell me how to tweek this 3.48 with the devices database from the 7.6 (or any other solution that allows me to use this new Kindle at word).

Thank you very much in advance!

Solution. Upgrade your calibre at home to the latest version and don't run calibre at work.

[Bussengeist]

Yes. Thank you all, but I guess JSBWolf is right: I'll have to pause using Calibre at work... at least until they get me a new computer.

Again: thank you very much, Sirtel, theducks, DNSB and JSWolf