asciidoctor: ERROR: KindleGen failed to write MOBI

[amejiarosario]

I'm getting this error after I updated this gem to master. (epub works fine btw)

asciidoctor: ERROR: KindleGen failed to write MOBI to /mnt/c/Users/adria/Code/dsa.js/book/dist/dsajs-book-vsnapshot.mobi

I even tried downloading the kindlegen manually and passing it in KINDLEGEN but still no go

 env VERSION='0' KINDLEGEN=(pwd)"/bin/kindlegen" bundle exec asciidoctor --backend=epub3 --require=asciidoctor-epub3 -a ebook-validate  -a ebook-format=kf8 --trace --require=asciidoctor-diagram --destination-dir=../dist -a revnumber=snapshot ../readme.asc --out-file=../dist/dsajs-book-snapshot.mobi

[slonopotamus]

@amejiarosario I need some more log output. Our "KindleGen failed to write MOBI" error just means that execution of KindleGen ended with non-zero exit code.

Also, what platform you're on? For Windows/Linux, KindleGen can be installed via kindlegen gem.

[amejiarosario]

@slonopotamus I added the --verbose flag and got some more data. I'm using Ubuntu WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).

bin/kindlegen: Syntax error: "(" unexpected

full logs:

$ bundle exec asciidoctor --verbose --backend=epub3 --require=asciidoctor-epub3 -a ebook-validate -a ebook-format=kf8 --trace --requuire=asciidoctor-diagram --destination-dir=../dist -a revnumber=0 ../readme.asc --out-file=../dist/dsajs-book-v0.mobi

/home/adrian/.asdf/installs/ruby/2.6.5/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/gems/gepub-1.0.11/lib/gepub/package.rb:174: warning: instance variable @ordered not initialized
/home/adrian/.asdf/installs/ruby/2.6.5/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/gems/gepub-1.0.11/lib/gepub/book.rb:131: warning: instance variable @optional_files not initialized
/home/adrian/.asdf/installs/ruby/2.6.5/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/gems/gepub-1.0.11/lib/gepub/spine.rb:50: warning: instance variable @rendition_specified not initialized
/home/adrian/.asdf/installs/ruby/2.6.5/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/gems/gepub-1.0.11/lib/gepub/metadata.rb:99: warning: instance variable @xml not initialized
asciidoctor: DEBUG: Wrote KF8 to /mnt/c/Users/adria/Code/dsa.js/book/dist/dsajs-book-v0-kf8.epub
asciidoctor: DEBUG: Using KindleGen from gem: /home/adrian/.asdf/installs/ruby/2.6.5/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/bundler/gems/kindlegen-12dd349ce59f/bin/kindlegen
asciidoctor: INFO: /home/adrian/.asdf/installs/ruby/2.6.5/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/bundler/gems/kindlegen-12dd349ce59f/bin/kindlegen: 1: /home/adrian/.asdf/installs/ruby/2.6.5/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/bundler/gems/kindlegen-12dd349ce59f/bin/kindlegen: Syntax error: "(" unexpected
asciidoctor: ERROR: KindleGen failed to write MOBI to /mnt/c/Users/adria/Code/dsa.js/book/dist/dsajs-book-v0.mobi

Let me know if you need anything else

[slonopotamus]

Seems like something went wrong when installing kindlegen gem. /home/adrian/.asdf/installs/ruby/2.6.5/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/bundler/gems/kindlegen-12dd349ce59f/bin/kindlegen is supposed to be an executable file. What does it contain?

[amejiarosario]

It's an executable binary file (ELF4). I tried to run it on its own and looks like is failing:

• bin/kindlegen' is marked as an executable but could not be run by the operating system.
• bin/kindlegen: cannot execute binary file: Exec format error

I also get the same error when trying to run the file I downloaded it kindlegen_linux_2.6_i386_v2_9.tar.gz. Not sure why won't work in Ubuntu.

Full logs:

$ /home/adrian/.asdf/installs/ruby/2.6.5/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/bundler/gems/kindlegen-12dd349ce59f/bin/kindlegen 

Failed to execute process '/home/adrian/.asdf/installs/ruby/2.6.5/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/bundler/gems/kindlegen-12dd349ce59f/bin/kindlegen'. Reason:
exec: Exec format error
The file '/home/adrian/.asdf/installs/ruby/2.6.5/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/bundler/gems/kindlegen-12dd349ce59f/bin/kindlegen' is marked as an executable but could not be run by the operating system.

$ bash -c '/home/adrian/.asdf/installs/ruby/2.6.5/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/bundler/gems/kindlegen-12dd349ce59f/bin/kindlegen'                        06:42:51
bash: /home/adrian/.asdf/installs/ruby/2.6.5/lib/ruby/gems/2.6.0/bundler/gems/kindlegen-12dd349ce59f/bin/kindlegen: cannot execute binary file: Exec format error

[slonopotamus]

Hmm... I've noticed that you're using non-release version of kindlegen gem but commit 12dd349ce59f that is almost 6 years old. Could you try updating to latest kindlegen release (3.0.5)?

[slonopotamus]

Also, does your kernel support running 32-bit executables at all? That could also be the cause of the problem.

[slonopotamus]

Closing this in favor of #363.

[amejiarosario]

I tried again on Ubuntu 20.04 (before 18.04) and with a newer version of ruby 2.7 (before 2.5). Also, deleted my Gemfile.lock and reinstalled everything fresh. It's working now 🤷‍♂️