calibre-1.48 fails to communicate with device, sets readonly

ExecutorElassus

So, after a recent emerge update, every time I plug in my kindle, I see 1) that it detects the device, and then 2) that it errors out of comunicating with it. After this point, the usb storage on the device is set read-only. This is calibre's traceback:

ExecutorElassus · Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 9:14 am Post subject:

ugh, so it turns out it was just corrupted data on the kindle's storage.

PROTIP: fsck.vfat is a part of the dosfstools package, and does not repair fs errors unless explicitly instructed to do so (see the man page). Took me a while to figure both of these things out

ExecutorElassus · Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 5:02 pm Post subject:

UPDATE: welp, here we are again. This time, fsck.vfat does not return any filesystem errors at all, and calibre isn't involved. Nevertheless, the moment I mount the Kindle (even manually) it mounts it read-only and sets the dirty bit. Calibre's own debugging returns the following:

Section_8 · l33t Joined: 22 May 2004 Posts: 627

Have you check dmesg after plugging it in?

ExecutorElassus · Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 3:56 am Post subject:

here is most recent dmesg:

Section_8 · l33t Joined: 22 May 2004 Posts: 627

I don't know what's wrong, but since you say calibre isn't involved now, you should probably open a new thread with this problem, since the first post and title of this thread aren't really accurate any more. Have you tried using a different USB cable, different port, etc., to see if it makes any difference?

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21633

The title can be changed, and if the real problem fits better somewhere else, the thread can be moved.

ExecutorElassus · Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 5:44 am Post subject:

welp, now I can't replicate the error. After doing fsck.vfat on the Kindle a few times, I unmounted it, disconnected it, and shut it down. Then, today, I reattached it, logged in to it on the device itself, then mounted it, seeing the following in dmesg:

ExecutorElassus · Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 3:37 pm Post subject:

Back at it again with this kindle tomfoolery.

So, I figured out what my previous (non-calibre-related) issue was: my file manager (Spacefm, which is otherwise quite good) kept attempting to auto-mount the kindle, and that caused issues.

Now I'm back to just calibre. If I use 'fsck.vfat -a -r /dev/sdg1' on the kindle, it resents the dirty bit and changes nothing else. Calibre, however, reports the errors as I previously described them (with the python traceback in my message from the 10th of July).

How do I find out if there are any files on the kindle that are corrupted for calibre? A bunch of the subdirectories in the "documents" folder on the kindle have long strings of characters appended to them; is that normal behavior?

Anyway, thanks (again) for the help.

Cheers,

EE
ADDENDUM: dmesg now also says the following:

Section_8 · l33t Joined: 22 May 2004 Posts: 627

If those directories you see have names ending in .sdr, I think those are have the amazon x-ray data for books that support it. You might be better off asking kindle and calibre questions at the mobileread forums. There are a lot of kindle and calibre experts (including calibre developers) who answer questions there.

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21633

If you get an answer there, please cross-post either the answer or a link to it here, so that anyone who finds your post here can benefit from the answers too.