Stanza stuck on searching on Win Vista & randomly crashes when trying to dl multiple .lit books
Thu, 12/03/2009 - 18:25 — Anonymous
I am running Windows Vista on an HP pc. My iPhone is connected via wifi while the desktop is connected via ethernet to the router (Linksys WRT160N). I was able to successfully connect and download approximately 32 books (.lit format) with little problem (except for stanza randomly crashing since I'm downloading multiple books - shifting over 300 ebooks by opening each individual ebook is time consuming enough without having to shift them 1 at a time to my iPhone - annoying, but hardly a dealbreaker). It is now (and has been for the past 20 minutes) stuck on searching when I attempt to shift it to view shared books on my desktop pc. Powercycling my iPhone did nothing, as did powercycling my desktop pc, turning off & on the wifi on the iPhone, unplugging my router, etc. I am unwilling to do a full system restore on my iPhone to fix what should be a relatively simple issue, and would like very much to be able to successfully transfer my .lit (M$ Reader) files to my iPhone. Please tell me either how to fix this, or point me in the direction of another ebook program that will let me do this to have my .lit files on my iPhone successfully.
BTW, the version of stanza is 1.9.1, the version of the iPhone OS is 3.1.2
Thank you,
Chris
taoraevyn@gmail.com
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Not to sound like a broken
Not to sound like a broken record or Calibre employee (i am neither, honest ;p ) but you should really try using Calibre to convert .LIT files to ePub. Probably the best format for conversion is .LIT, for some reason, at least for Calibre.
You've got several problems to deal with here....
Hi Chris -
You're chasing down the same path that several of us have taken, and while the answers aren't exactly pretty they do work. Bulk transfer of books from the PC to the iPod/iPhone is tricky at best under 1.9.1, but there are two fairly reliable options. Neither one of them involves the use of Stanza PC.
There are two problems here that you need to address - first, Stanza for the handheld device (iPod/iPhone) can only read one format - ePUB. The Stanza desktop application converts the files you open to share to ePUBs prior to serving them up to the handheld device. If you're going to do a bulk transfer of LIT (MS Reader format) files to the handheld, first you're going to have to convert them to ePUBs. There are a number of software packages you can use for this purpose (including Stanza desktop), but the one I've had the best luck with is CALIBRE, a freeware application for managing, converting, and transfer of ebooks. Calibre will convert your lit files to ePUB format, and does a pretty decent job of it most of the time.
The second challenge is actually moving the files to the handheld device. Calibre manages your library, and will act as a content server to allow you to transfer those files to the handheld. The problem of Stanza 1.9.1 (handheld version) sporadically taking a dive while downloading multiple files will still be a factor, but with a few restarts you should be able to move the files in smaller batches (20 at a time or so).
A better solution is to move the files directly to the file system of the handheld using one of the utilities such as DiskAid. These utilities allow you to directly copy to the handheld device via the USB cable supplied with your handheld. Stanza 1.9.1 has a feature that allows for bulk loading of ePUB files - when Stanza opens, it looks at a specific directory on the handheld for ePUBs. If any are found, they are imported automatically into Stanza's library and erased from the directory. You can get more information on this in the FAQ on transferring books. I've used this method to move up to 100 books at a time, and it doesn't seem to have the problems I've experienced with bulk downloading from a content server.
Michael