Bug: Generate M4B creates a 30kb file instead of complete file.

[advplyr]

Bug: Generate M4B creates a 30kb file instead of complete file.

[Kudjo-Grand]

I did a little test. I wondered if it just had something to do with how your code handles JUST the .m4b extension while trying to stitch everything together to make a new .m4b file with chapters and everything.

So, I cheated. I didn't convert anything. I just changed the file extension from .m4b to .mp3 reloaded the book into ABS. I then re-ran the generate .m4b process by pushing the "Start Download" button again. And BINGO! This time, it worked as expected. A 400+ MB file was generated with chapters in the correct order and cover embedded. So, well done!

It's a little hacky, but it looks like I know what to do in the future to make this work.

Hopefully, this was helpful.

What do you think?

[advplyr]

I came across this issue as well with m4b files, but didn't dig into it too much. Thanks for experimenting and finding that out, that will give me a starting place in fixing that issue.

[Kudjo-Grand]

I just tried this trick again (change file extension to .mp3) with a different book that had .FLAC as the source files and it worked there too! However, I noticed something that makes me wonder.

At first, I thought the generate m4b process didn't "touch" the source files at all; just repackaged them into the m4b format. But when the source FLAC files total up to 6.1GB and the generated file is only 504MB, then I know that I thought wrong.

Would you mind telling me how the conversion is taking place? What settings are being used? Out of curiosity: Is there a way to change the settings? Or turn off compression?

Thank you.

[advplyr]

The source file does not get manipulated at all. It is using Ffmpeg and the source is an input, Ffmpeg doesn't modify input files.
You can see the exact command that is being run to generate the m4b if you open the log, then start the m4b download, and look for a log that starts with this: [DownloadWorker] FFMPEG concat started with command:

That command is doing all the work. There are 2 text files that are generated that you will see in the command, files.txt and metadata.txt. These files are stored in /metadata/downloads/{download id}/.. and automatically deleted when the download expires, times out, or fails.

[advplyr]

Are you still seeing this issue?

[Kudjo-Grand]

I'll check.

[advplyr]

We'll re-open if this is reproducible