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wryfi

Member

Registered: 2014-08-03

Posts: 9

kindle and calibre 3.16.0 on 4.14.15

I can't get calibre to work with my Kindle Paperwhite these days. I'm not sure exactly when the issue started, but I am currently running calibre-3.16.0 on kernel 4.14.15.

When I run calibre in debug mode, I get the following output in the debug log:

Ignoring the node: sdc as could not read size from: /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-3/1-3:1.0/host3/target3:0:0/3:0:0:0/block/sdc/size
Started up in 7.60 seconds with 101 books

Ignoring the node: sdc as could not read size from: /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-3/1-3:1.0/host3/target3:0:0/3:0:0:0/block/sdc/size
Unable to open device <calibre.devices.kindle.driver.KINDLE2 object at 0x7efd2bb50c10>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 198, in do_connect
    dev.open(detected_device, self.current_library_uuid)
  File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/devices/usbms/device.py", line 825, in open
    self.open_linux()
  File "/usr/lib/calibre/calibre/devices/usbms/device.py", line 571, in open_linux
    %self.__class__.__name__)
DeviceError: Unable to detect the KINDLE2 disk drive. Either the device has already been ejected, or your kernel is exporting a deprecated version of SYSFS.

dmesg output confirms that the Kindle is registered as /dev/sdc:

[Wed Jan 31 09:03:44 2018] usb-storage 1-3:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[Wed Jan 31 09:03:44 2018] scsi host3: usb-storage 1-3:1.0
[Wed Jan 31 09:03:45 2018] scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Kindle   Internal Storage 0100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[Wed Jan 31 09:03:45 2018] sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[Wed Jan 31 09:03:45 2018] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk

The sysfs path referenced in the debug log exists, where I find that the size of sdc is reported as 0. I'm not sure if this is relevant or problematic.

$ cat  /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-3/1-3:1.0/host3/target3:0:0/3:0:0:0/block/sdc/size
0

Can anyone explain what's going on here? Do I need to recompile a kernel with "Enable deprecated sysfs features to support old userspace tools" or something? Or is this some other kind of issue masquerading as a sysfs problem?

I'm running plasma5 as my desktop environment with sddm as login manager (all up to date) and I've tried under both Wayland and X to no avail. I found some other posts referencing permission settings in policykit, but they are several years old and the policykit configurations have changed since they were written. Is this a policykit permissions issue?

Please help!

Last edited by wryfi (2018-01-31 17:27:30)

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,729

Re: kindle and calibre 3.16.0 on 4.14.15

Kindle 2? Holy crap.

It does not appear to be a permission issue. Can you mount the kindle and browse it? Can you try the LTS kernel?

wryfi

Member

Registered: 2014-08-03

Posts: 9

Re: kindle and calibre 3.16.0 on 4.14.15

Kindle 2? Holy crap.

It is actually a Paperwhite. I believe it uses the same Calibre plugin.

Can you mount the kindle and browse it? Can you try the LTS kernel?

No, I cannot seem to mount it. There are no partitions (sdcN) and trying to mount /dev/sdc is a no go.

Last edited by wryfi (2018-01-31 17:27:02)

eschwartz

Fellow

Registered: 2014-08-08

Posts: 4,097

Re: kindle and calibre 3.16.0 on 4.14.15

Yes, the KINDLE2 driver is used by most Kindle models, with the exception of the original Kindle and the DX.

This works fine for me, so I think the issue probably stems from the fact that the drive is borked (difficult for calibre to mount the device if your OS cannot see it). Possibly the hardware connector is damaged and the internal memory is not being exported over USB? If the mmc was damaged then you would likely not be able to use it at all...

Last edited by eschwartz (2018-01-31 17:33:45)

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wryfi

Member

Registered: 2014-08-03

Posts: 9

Re: kindle and calibre 3.16.0 on 4.14.15

Eschwartz, I think you may be onto something. It doesn't work on my work Macbook, either. From macOS I get a similar looking error:

Connect to device failed, retrying in 5 seconds...
Unable to open device <calibre.devices.kindle.driver.KINDLE2 object at 0x1105cc290>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "site-packages/calibre/gui2/device.py", line 198, in do_connect
  File "site-packages/calibre/devices/usbms/device.py", line 840, in open
  File "site-packages/calibre/devices/usbms/device.py", line 402, in open_osx
  File "site-packages/calibre/devices/usbms/device.py", line 392, in osx_bsd_names
  File "site-packages/calibre/devices/usbms/device.py", line 345, in _osx_bsd_names
DeviceError: Could not detect BSD names for Kindle 2/3/4/Touch/PaperWhite/Voyage Device Interface. Try rebooting.
Output from osx_get_usb_drives():
[]

I guess it's time to throw more money to the Amazon goons.