brotab doesn't work on ubuntu 22.04

[ofirgall]

Hey, I have upgrade my PC to Ubuntu 22.04 lately and I can't figure out why brotab isn't working.

bt and the mediator are communicating, I can see logs at /tmp/brotab_mediator.log but it seems that it can't grab info from my firefox. First I thought its something about firefox is installed by snap in 22.04 so I installed as a .deb instead but it didn't work. I have installed the extensions I have ran bt install and I ensured that the mediator json is actually there.

ofirg@ofirg:/tmp $ bt clients
ofirg@ofirg:/tmp $ bt windows
ofirg@ofirg:/tmp $ bt list

ofirg@ofirg:/tmp $

Firefox log

14:34:49.378 Detecting browser background.js:200:9
14:34:49.379 Connecting to native app background.js:208:11
14:34:49.382 It's Firefox: [object Object] background.js:211:13
14:34:49.382 Connected to native app brotab_mediator background.js:645:9

brotab_mediator.log

2022-07-03 14:04:58,125 19400 INFO     main.py:143:list_tabs Listing tabs
2022-07-03 14:04:58,126 19400 INFO     main.py:115:create_clients Created clients: []

Versions

ofirg@ofirg:/tmp $ firefox -V
Mozilla Firefox 102.0
ofirg@ofirg:/tmp $ python3 -V
Python 3.10.4

Mediator

ofirg@ofirg:/tmp $ cat /home/ofirg/.mozilla/native-messaging-hosts/brotab_mediator.json
{
  "name": "brotab_mediator",
  "description": "This mediator exposes interface over TCP to control browser's tabs",
  "path": "/home/ofirg/.local/bin/bt_mediator",
  "type": "stdio",
  "allowed_extensions": [ "[email protected]" ]
}

How can I troubleshoot this any further?

[balta2ar]

Looks like bt can't find open ports that mediator is listening to. It tries to scan the range from 4625 to 4635 and it seems it can't find any. Try checking which port mediator is actually listening to. e.g. in my setup:

$ sudo netstat -nplt | grep python | grep 46
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:4626          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      1586875/python      
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:4628          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      1589848/python
$ curl 'http://localhost:4626/get_browser'
firefox
$ curl 'http://localhost:4628/get_browser'
chrome/chromium

[ofirgall]

Thanks for the quick reply. You are right there are no sockets listening from python.

ofirg@ofirg:~/dotfiles (master) $ sudo netstat -nplt | grep python
ofirg@ofirg:~/dotfiles (master) $

There are no mediator logs, it seems that the firefox didn't run the mediator, when I run the mediator manually I see the startup logs.

This console.log(port) should sender be undefined

13:23:27.313
Object { name: "brotab_mediator", sender: undefined, error: null, onMessage: {…}, onDisconnect: {…}, postMessage: (), disconnect: () }

[rsyring]

Possibly due to Firefox being a snap by default in 22.04?

If so, probably related to #33.

[ofirgall]

As i said I installed firefox as .deb

[rsyring]

Ah, obviously missed that. Sorry. :)

[ofirgall]

Any news about that @balta2ar ?

[balta2ar]

Sorry, I must have missed your reply.

When you do bt install, it prints a bunch of paths, e.g.:

$ bt install
Installing mediator manifest /home/ybochkarev/.mozilla/native-messaging-hosts/brotab_mediator.json
Installing mediator manifest /home/ybochkarev/.config/chromium/NativeMessagingHosts/brotab_mediator.json
Installing mediator manifest /home/ybochkarev/.config/google-chrome/NativeMessagingHosts/brotab_mediator.json
Installing mediator manifest /home/ybochkarev/.config/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/NativeMessagingHosts/brotab_mediator.json

Could you check what's in the file that corresponds Firefox?

$ cat /home/ybochkarev/.mozilla/native-messaging-hosts/brotab_mediator.json
{
  "name": "brotab_mediator",
  "description": "This mediator exposes interface over TCP to control browser's tabs",
  "path": "/home/ybochkarev/.local/bin/bt_mediator",
  "type": "stdio",
  "allowed_extensions": [ "[email protected]" ]
}

and then try running bt_mediator exactly as you see its path in path field, e.g.

$ /home/ybochkarev/.local/bin/bt_mediator

That how Firefox would try to run it.

If that doesn't work, it could indicate that your env when running from a terminal and when running by Firefox are different, e.g. PATH could be different. In that that case we can dig further by examining the differences. You'll need to create a wrapper script, e.g. /home/ybochkarev/.local/bin/bt_mediator_wrapper with something like this:

#!/bin/bash

env > /tmp/wrapper.log
/home/ybochkarev/.local/bin/bt_mediator

And then we can compare the output of env when run from a terminal vs when run by Firefox.

[ofirgall]

Hey,

I have the same results as you:

ofirg@ofirg:~ $ cat /home/ofirg/.mozilla/native-messaging-hosts/brotab_mediator.json
{
  "name": "brotab_mediator",
  "description": "This mediator exposes interface over TCP to control browser's tabs",
  "path": "/home/ofirg/.local/bin/bt_mediator",
  "type": "stdio",
  "allowed_extensions": [ "[email protected]" ]
}

and ~/.local/bin/bt_mediator runs (no output to stdout/err)

[SpriteN]

Can't get brotab to work. I have tried to run ~/.local/bin/bt_mediator and get ImportError: cannot import name 'url_quote' from 'werkzeug.urls'