ebook-convert fails with TypeError: Argument must be bytes or unicode, got 'float'

[Moe Camerun]

ebook-convert (calibre 4.23.0)

OS: Fedora 33, Linux

Reproducer: Run ebook-convert input.html output.mobi

Stacktrace is:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/ebook-convert", line 20, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/ebooks/conversion/cli.py", line 401, in main
    plumber.run()
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/ebooks/conversion/plumber.py", line 1274, in run
    self.output_plugin.convert(self.oeb, self.output, self.input_plugin,
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/ebooks/conversion/plugins/mobi_output.py", line 213, in convert
    self.write_mobi(input_plugin, output_path, kf8, resources)
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/ebooks/conversion/plugins/mobi_output.py", line 245, in write_mobi
    mobimlizer(oeb, opts)
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/ebooks/mobi/mobiml.py", line 129, in __call__
    self.mobimlize_spine()
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/ebooks/mobi/mobiml.py", line 139, in mobimlize_spine
    self.mobimlize_elem(body, stylizer, BlockState(nbody),
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/ebooks/mobi/mobiml.py", line 586, in mobimlize_elem
    self.mobimlize_elem(child, stylizer, bstate, istates)
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/ebooks/mobi/mobiml.py", line 586, in mobimlize_elem
    self.mobimlize_elem(child, stylizer, bstate, istates)
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/ebooks/mobi/mobiml.py", line 584, in mobimlize_elem
    self.mobimlize_content(tag, text, bstate, istates)
  File "/usr/lib64/calibre/calibre/ebooks/mobi/mobiml.py", line 301, in mobimlize_content
    inline = etree.SubElement(inline, XHTML('font'),
  File "src/lxml/etree.pyx", line 3136, in lxml.etree.SubElement
  File "src/lxml/apihelpers.pxi", line 199, in lxml.etree._makeSubElement
  File "src/lxml/apihelpers.pxi", line 194, in lxml.etree._makeSubElement
  File "src/lxml/apihelpers.pxi", line 317, in lxml.etree._initNodeAttributes
  File "src/lxml/apihelpers.pxi", line 334, in lxml.etree._addAttributeToNode
  File "src/lxml/apihelpers.pxi", line 1538, in lxml.etree._utf8
TypeError: Argument must be bytes or unicode, got 'float'

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

I do not provide support for people using distro provided packages. If you are using a distro provided package, uninstall it and install the official calibre binary from https://calibre-ebook.com/download_linux and if you can reproduce the bug with that, re-open the ticket. Of course, if you are already using the official binary, apologies and feel free to re-open the ticket immediately :)

 status invalid

[Moe Camerun (spamthemoe)]

Hi,

just installed the official binary:

ebook-convert (calibre 5.22.1)

Bug is still reproducible.

[Kovid Goyal (kovid)]

Fixed in branch master. The fix will be in the next release. calibre is usually released every alternate Friday.

 status fixreleased

[Moe Camerun (spamthemoe)]

Wow, thanks a lot for your effort.