I've tried the combine as well to no avail, over 40 tries at this point. The combine returns components so I don't think it's a container issue, nor do I get a "appear to be missing something" which would indicate a book needing to be scribed. But my chanter at level 74 with a skill of 280 can make 500 trivial spells in 5 or less tries. I even tried leveling my shaman to 100 to see if that would help but stopped after 8 more fails. Perhaps need epic?