Empty files and Previous downloads is always Book persistence disabled

[ghost]

I am using the last section docker compose from https://github.com/evan-buss/openbooks/blob/master/docker.md

It will search, it will download a book correctly to the persistent location

but...

the browser download, results in an empty file with .txt attach to it. Not the file downloaded to the persistent location
secondly the Previous downloads always shows Book persistence disabled.

How to fix this, is there a hidden option, argument?