From 572c34b821ab2e28487fde17125ecf0f074e6f42 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Kovid Goyal <kovid@kovidgoyal.net>
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2022 07:32:15 +0530
Subject: [PATCH] Fix #1968767 [JSONDecode Error when turning pages with space
 bar in the E-Book Viewer](https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/1968767)

---
 src/calibre/gui2/viewer/config.py | 8 ++++++--
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/calibre/gui2/viewer/config.py b/src/calibre/gui2/viewer/config.py
index 94687cafcd..2fc31abfca 100644
--- a/src/calibre/gui2/viewer/config.py
+++ b/src/calibre/gui2/viewer/config.py
@@ -38,13 +38,17 @@ def reading_rates_path():
 
 def save_reading_rates(key, rates):
     path = reading_rates_path()
+    existing = {}
     try:
         with open(path, 'rb') as f:
             raw = f.read()
     except OSError:
-        existing = {}
+        pass
     else:
-        existing = json.loads(raw)
+        try:
+            existing = json.loads(raw)
+        except Exception:
+            pass
     existing.pop(key, None)
     existing[key] = rates
     while len(existing) > 50: