USA Today (english) not working

[BRGriff]

The recipe for USA Today (english) has stopped working. In the last couple of days, the recipe begins but then fails with the error message "ValueError: No articles found, aborting." I have checked all the links by copying and pasting them into a web browser and all the links work. Any ideas what the problem is? Thank you for any help you can render.

[kovidgoyal]

Just tried it, worked for me. Maybe the server has having some transient issues for a few days?

[BRGriff]

I just tried it multiple times and I am getting a "Conversion Error" each time. I have not modified the recipe and have used the same recipe for years without problems until just a few days ago. I also download Reuters every day along side USA Today and have had no problems with that recipe.

Here is the log of the error message:

calibre, version 1.31.0 (win32, isfrozen: True)
Conversion Error: Failed: Fetch news from USA Today

Fetch news from USA Today
Resolved conversion options
calibre version: 1.31.0
{'asciiize': False,
 'author_sort': None,
 'authors': None,
 'base_font_size': 0,
 'book_producer': None,
 'change_justification': 'original',
 'chapter': None,
 'chapter_mark': 'pagebreak',
 'comments': None,
 'cover': None,
 'debug_pipeline': None,
 'dehyphenate': True,
 'delete_blank_paragraphs': True,
 'disable_font_rescaling': False,
 'dont_compress': False,
 'dont_download_recipe': False,
 'duplicate_links_in_toc': False,
 'embed_all_fonts': False,
 'embed_font_family': None,
 'enable_heuristics': False,
 'expand_css': False,
 'extra_css': None,
 'extract_to': None,
 'filter_css': None,
 'fix_indents': True,
 'font_size_mapping': None,
 'format_scene_breaks': True,
 'html_unwrap_factor': 0.4,
 'input_encoding': None,
 'input_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.InputProfile object at 0x0368CAF0>,
 'insert_blank_line': False,
 'insert_blank_line_size': 0.5,
 'insert_metadata': False,
 'isbn': None,
 'italicize_common_cases': True,
 'keep_ligatures': False,
 'language': None,
 'level1_toc': None,
 'level2_toc': None,
 'level3_toc': None,
 'line_height': 0,
 'linearize_tables': False,
 'lrf': False,
 'margin_bottom': 5.0,
 'margin_left': 5.0,
 'margin_right': 5.0,
 'margin_top': 5.0,
 'markup_chapter_headings': True,
 'max_toc_links': 50,
 'minimum_line_height': 120.0,
 'mobi_file_type': 'old',
 'mobi_ignore_margins': False,
 'mobi_keep_original_images': False,
 'mobi_toc_at_start': False,
 'no_chapters_in_toc': False,
 'no_inline_navbars': True,
 'no_inline_toc': False,
 'output_profile': <calibre.customize.profiles.KindleDXOutput object at 0x0368CE50>,
 'page_breaks_before': None,
 'personal_doc': '[PDOC]',
 'prefer_author_sort': False,
 'prefer_metadata_cover': False,
 'pretty_print': False,
 'pubdate': None,
 'publisher': None,
 'rating': None,
 'read_metadata_from_opf': None,
 'remove_fake_margins': True,
 'remove_first_image': False,
 'remove_paragraph_spacing': False,
 'remove_paragraph_spacing_indent_size': 1.5,
 'renumber_headings': True,
 'replace_scene_breaks': '',
 'search_replace': None,
 'series': None,
 'series_index': None,
 'share_not_sync': False,
 'smarten_punctuation': False,
 'sr1_replace': '',
 'sr1_search': '',
 'sr2_replace': '',
 'sr2_search': '',
 'sr3_replace': '',
 'sr3_search': '',
 'start_reading_at': None,
 'subset_embedded_fonts': False,
 'tags': None,
 'test': False,
 'timestamp': None,
 'title': None,
 'title_sort': None,
 'toc_filter': None,
 'toc_threshold': 6,
 'toc_title': None,
 'unsmarten_punctuation': False,
 'unwrap_lines': True,
 'use_auto_toc': False,
 'verbose': 2}
InputFormatPlugin: Recipe Input running
Using custom recipe
Python function terminated unexpectedly
  No articles found, aborting (Error Code: 1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "site.py", line 132, in main
  File "site.py", line 109, in run_entry_point
  File "site-packages\calibre\utils\ipc\worker.py", line 195, in main
  File "site-packages\calibre\gui2\convert\gui_conversion.py", line 25, in gui_convert
  File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plumber.py", line 1038, in run
  File "site-packages\calibre\customize\conversion.py", line 241, in __call__
  File "site-packages\calibre\ebooks\conversion\plugins\recipe_input.py", line 117, in convert
  File "site-packages\calibre\web\feeds\news.py", line 982, in download
  File "site-packages\calibre\web\feeds\news.py", line 1155, in build_index
ValueError: No articles found, aborting

[jumafl]

The USA Today recipe is failing for me as well. I tested with the built in, standard recipe on version 1.48. I normally run a customized version that compresses images.

The pages linked in the recipe contain embedded pictures I don't remember seeing a few years ago. Could this be the problem?

[kovidgoyal]

Why are both of you using such ancient versions of calibre? All I can tell you is that it works with the current calibre release.

[BRGriff]

That did the trick. Calibre was working just fine for me for several years now so I did not even think about updating it. I guess I should consider doing that at least once a year. Thank you for your assistance!

[jumafl]

As BRGiff said, that did the trick. Thanks for pointing out the solution.

I stopped upgrading because 1.48 was doing everything I needed just fine. (If it isn't broken, don't fix it )

A nice new feature (assuming you need any ideas) would be an option to send an email to a separate email address when a scheduled recipe fails. For example, I'm usually a few days behind in reading USA Today on my Paperwhite, and Calibre runs on a computer I just use to run scheduled jobs. By the time I notice a recipe failed, it's sometimes too late to go back to run it. The issue could be as simple as the site was down for a few hours and all I need to do is manually run the recipe.