BookSmart
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Hello digitalsun; There’s been a bunch of reports like this. The software is clearly flaky, but I know Blurb are working on it… Why don’t you try making a copy of your ".book" file; you can find it in; C:\Documents and Settings\[USER_NAME]\My Documents\BookSmartData\[BOOK_NAME] Obviously replace [USER_NAME] & [BOOK_NAME] with your own… You’re looking for the file named "[whatever].book" & copy it to a safe folder somewhere, or a CD… Uninstall BookSmart from the Control Panel; Download the latest file from Blurb; Save it to a FTP Files folder or somesuch; (Do NOT install direct from the download site)... Re-install BookSmart, then re-import your .book file to the My Documents location… It’s worth a shot… Good luck; Lee |
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Hello Digitalsun and Lkb, First off I have good reason to believe your book is quite intact but experiencing a software issue in BookSmart. When the book grows larger it becomes exponentially more difficult to open. This is being taken care of in the new release of BookSmart, which is due out in September. Sorry for any inconvenience. Lkb, while I do admire the approach of your post there are a couple things that should be noted. I would suggest making an entire copy of the booksmartdata folder instead of just the individual bookfile. Reason being, BookSmart is sensitive to the containing folder name. BookSmart is designed in a modular fashion so that uninstalling the application, will have no effect on books. Given this software issue, uninstalling and reinstalling will not have an effect. These difficult to open book files do tend to open, but sometimes after and extended period (1-2 hours). As I mentioned before, we are well aware of this, and working in a determined fashion to clear up this inconvenience. Please keep an eye on blurb.com, the new version of BookSmart 1.9 is coming soon! -Ben Senior Technical Support Specialist |
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Hello Ben; Thanks for posting up this valuable insight… A question; Is it IMPERATIVE that the whole folder is backed-up? The reason I ask is that my BookSmartData folder for the only full book I have so far created contains two sub-folders called "Library" & "Themes". The "Library" folder contains over 1000 files, of which a few hundred appear to be back-up files! The rest appear to be a record of just about every action I’ve taken on the book, including actions I took and then reversed! The size if the "Library" folder (mainly due to the numerous back-up files (*.original ???)) is not only chewing up a huge amount of space on my hard-drive, but also makes the whole back-up process somewhat cumbersome! Also, why is there a need to have identical "Themes" folders for every book that’s opened – even though the folder contents are minimal? Seems like a waste of space to me! I am becoming quite disenchanted with Blurb / BookSmart the more I get to know about it… It’s a shame, because I think the software has great potential; but it clearly needs a great deal of work! Cheers; Lee |
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Yeah, I too spent much time on a 30-page book (my first one), and now Booksmart just stalls out and turns grey. Looking at my task manager, when trying to open my book, Bookmark is taking up about 600 MG of RAM and 60-80% of my CPU time. If indeed the publisher is a couple weeks away from a fix, should they perhaps post a warning that this common, crippling bug is out there for books of any size over 20 pages (or some such warning)? I know it’s beta, but reading the other posts, it looks as if it’s not uncommon. I would’ve appreciated a note beforehand so that I could’ve spent my Saturday afternoon and evening in a more productive way. Anyway, kindly notify me if you can when you release a fix. I really hope to salvage something. thx |
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Yeah, me too. It’s a bloody disappointment, to say the least, to get into this opening mess unwarned. Bjoern |
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Last week I uploaded the latest version of my book. I received confirmation of successful upload, and then notice that the book has been shipped. Over the weekend I’ve been trying to make final corrections so I can place my first real order of 20 books. Instead of functioning, this is what I get: |
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Hi Bluegrass, The most up-to-date info on books opening slowly has been posted at the top of our forums since August 17. It’s a problem that we’re acutely aware of and one that will become a thing of the past with our next release. We’re so deep into the next release that to release just a fix for this one problem would throw off the rest of the entire release schedule, so we’ve opted to release a fully loaded version and not a patch. As for your other questions, there could be a number of things going on that should be dealt with on an individual basis. Please go ahead and fill out our Customer Support form so that someone can address those specific issues. Hope that helps. Again, thanks for your patience. –Ben |
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Ben, When will we patient customers see this brave new release? I have been to the forum about slow opening books many times, posted there too. All I see there is endless customer frustration, and NO helpful remedies from Blurb. All the patience in the world does not prevent the calendar pages from turning. Phil |
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Hi Bluegrass, Our plan is to release the next version of Eno by the end of the month. We don’t publicize exact dates for obvious reasons. All I can say is that for some it will be worth the wait. I myself can’t wait to make a Maui photo book for my sister-in-law using the new layouts and themes. – Kathy
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Back up Back up Back up first allways back up I have been a tec for 14 years now and there is nothing more i can tell you it is not if something will go wrong it is when all ways when something will go wrong. Now phone the tech of book smart and talk to him and he will walk you out of this trust him he is the only one you can trust to get you out of such a problem. Techs know the problem with there programs better than any one else usally. |
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Me too!!!! I even removed Book Smart and downloaded it again and started over, it worked for a little while and then I tried to reopen it and it happended again! AGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I had spent a combined amount of at least 15-20 hours on the first and second book!!!! Now it will not open! |
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YIKES! DOES BOOKSMART WORK FOR ANYBODY?! After reading all these post it seems like Blurb is a BUST! I spent all this week on my book and now it will not open. All I read from the techs is that one magical day in the future the sun will shine and all will be wonderful… well what are we suppose to do right now? Maybe it is just a small portion of us having problems otherwise how, oh how is Blurb even on the market? Guess I will look on the site for some success stories before I continue with my book… man, this is frustrating. |
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Nikiallie – you made a very good point in your post and I wanted to respond. It’s true: a very, very small percentage of Blurb bookmakers are experiencing problems with BookSmart and many, many books are being made everyday without any trouble whatsoever. The Forums are a place for seeking answers and giving feedback, so there are frequent posts asking for help and providing valuable input on where we can make improvement. But, there are raves too. And you can see success stories in the blog and in the bookstore. I’m sure that everyone experiencing problems right now will eventually have success using Blurb. I know that the wait is frustrating, but the next version of BookSmart will be here very soon and it’ll be worth the wait. -Allison |
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A quick note to tell you that Booksmart is not a total bust, but has served me well for several books this year without any failure or problems at all (ver 1.8). That includes generating books up to 160 pages in length. But any problems by anyone is not good. It sure questions any confidence I have that someday my own work will be destroyed by the software. The reason I keep using it, however, is that there is not other product that is really comparable to Blurb, price point vs quality and ease of book generation. I have used several others for photo books but seem to always come back to Blurb. My only wish is that Blub would provide a glossy paper option for their books like other services do and is more standard for professional photo books instead of the somewhat duller paper currently used. |
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I’ve just had the same problem, spent a week every night working on my first book & now I cant open it. I cant tell you how frustrating this is!! If this new version that fixes all of this isnt out when Blurb has promised, i.e. by the end of this week, they will have lost another customer. Please sort it out Blurb!! |
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End of the month eh? Hmmm that is 5 days from now, surely Blurb would know if the release is going to be ready to go? Blurb its really time to get serious about communicating to your customers, I am ready to delete your app and go elsewhere. COMMUNICATION IS ESSENTIAL! You are spending the trust of your customers unwisely. |
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Ahhh....Booksmart wont open my 1 month work in progress!
