Latest TOR and VDH coapp problem

[DaveWave]

I am running TOR 13.0 on Linux (pop os 22.04) and I am having a problem with the coapp not being recognized. I am currently using VDH 8.0.0.8 and the coapp (v 163) downloads OK and seems to install but it never really does. VDH keeps asking me to install it when I check the settings. I have tried the beta VDH and coapp 2.03 (I think that's the number) but no change. Any clues here?

BTW I think before the last 1 or 2 updates, this worked fine.

Dave

[Paul Rouget]

Can you try the Coapp 2.0.4 ?

After install, can you double check that `vdhcoapp --info` returns something?

Can you try Vdh 8.1 beta ?

Can you make sure your distribution is not using some sort of sandboxing mechanism (snap, AppArmor, flatpak, …)?

[Wild Willy]

Ummm . . .

[Wild Willy]

By "kill ffmpeg" I hope you don't mean you do a simple kill of the task. I hope you send
it a q & let it end gracefully.

[DaveWave]

I am not the greatest with linux, that said...

I downloaded 2.04, extracted it but don't know where to put it. I have 2.03 installed.

vdhcoapp --info returns "command not found" in the terminal.

Installed VDH 8.1.0.0a4.

I am sure that my distro is sandboxing as I have some flatpak and snap stuff.

It still says "companion app not installed". 

Now what?

[DaveWave]

I also have Firefox 118.02 running VDH 8.0.0.6 and coapp 2.03 and it works fine.

[Paul Rouget]

Alright, let's try to figure this out.

You downloaded the vdhcoapp-v2.0.3-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2  file, correct?

Extract it.

Once this is done, with a shell, go the directory where you extracted the tar.bz2.

Then, type this:

./vdhcoapp install

Then try again with Tor see if it's recognized (it's very possible that it doesn't work with Tor, to be honest I haven't tried yet).

If it's not, please let me know what this command says:

./vdhcoapp --info

[Paul Rouget]

On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 1:09:36 PM UTC+8 Wild Willy wrote:

By "kill ffmpeg" I hope you don't mean you do a simple kill of the task. I hope you send
it a q & let it end gracefully.

Are you referring to the description of the release? That message was there because it was the latest commit (i just changed it).

And no, we don't use the "q" thing. We kill the process.

 

[Wild Willy]

It seems I visited the Github page for CoApp 2.0.4 while you were updating it. There
were only 2 assets there at the time, which were only the source code assets. The whole
thing is there now.

As for killing vs q, I believe I have killed ffmpeg & I was left with a non-playable
file. When I give it q, it closes gracefully & what it leaves behind is playable. I
guess we'll see how it goes with the CoApp.

Also, I should draw your attention to this:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/ZSdHa7mt8D8

[Paul Rouget]

On Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 2:27:14 PM UTC+8 Wild Willy wrote:

As for killing vs q, I believe I have killed ffmpeg & I was left with a non-playable
file. When I give it q, it closes gracefully & what it leaves behind is playable. I
guess we'll see how it goes with the CoApp.

You're correct. But the "force killing ffmpeg" operation mentioned here only happens in very certain situation (sometimes Firefox would kill the coapp leaving a zombie ffmpeg).

 

[DaveWave]

On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 10:54:43 PM UTC-7 Video DownloadHelper Q&A wrote:

Alright, let's try to figure this out.

You downloaded the vdhcoapp-v2.0.3-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2  file, correct?

Extract it.

Once this is done, with a shell, go the directory where you extracted the tar.bz2.

Then, type this:

./vdhcoapp install

Then try again with Tor see if it's recognized (it's very possible that it doesn't work with Tor, to be honest I haven't tried yet).

If it's not, please let me know what this command says:

./vdhcoapp --info

 The coapp that I originally downloaded was vdhcoapp-2.0.4.tar.gz that I did not know what to do with. I read that vdh 8.1... only works with coapp 2.0.4.

Downloaded vdhcoapp-2.0.4-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2 and extracted it. Here are the install results:

dave@pop-osb:~/Downloads/vdhcoapp-2.0.4$ ./vdhcoapp install
Installing…
Flatpak is installed. Making the coapp available from browser sandboxes:
Linked coapp within org.mozilla.firefox.
Linked coapp within com.brave.Browser.
Linked coapp within com.google.Chrome.
Linked coapp within com.google.ChromeDev.
Linked coapp within org.chromium.Chromium.
Linked coapp within com.github.Eloston.UngoogledChromium.
Linked coapp within com.microsoft.Edge.
Linked coapp within com.microsoft.EdgeDev.
Writing /home/dave/.mozilla/native-messaging-hosts/net.downloadhelper.coapp.json
Writing /home/dave/.var/app/org.mozilla.firefox/.mozilla/native-messaging-hosts/net.downloadhelper.coapp.json
Writing /home/dave/.var/app/com.brave.Browser/config/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/NativeMessagingHosts/net.downloadhelper.coapp.json
VdhCoApp : VdhCoApp is ready to be used

TOR still says "companion app not installed". Here is the output from ./vdhcoapp --info:

dave@pop-osb:~/Downloads/vdhcoapp-2.0.4$ ./vdhcoapp --info
{
  "id": "net.downloadhelper.coapp",
  "name": "VdhCoApp",
  "version": "2.0.4",
  "binary": "/home/dave/Downloads/vdhcoapp-2.0.4/vdhcoapp",
  "displayName": "VdhCoApp",
  "description": "Video DownloadHelper companion app",
  "target": {
    "os": "linux",
    "arch": "x86_64",
    "node": "18"
  },
  "home": "/home/dave",
  "converterBinary": "/home/dave/Downloads/vdhcoapp-2.0.4/ffmpeg",
  "converterBase": "ffmpeg",
  "converterBaseVersion": "6.0"
}

I noticed that TOR was not mentioned in the install output, could this be the problem?

[Paul Rouget]

I noticed that TOR was not mentioned in the install output, could this be the problem?

Most likely. We need to find the difrectory where Tor saves its profile data.

Is there a "~/.mozilla/torbrowser" directory? If so, what's in it?

And just to double check, are you using Tails?

 

[DaveWave]

There is no  ~/.mozilla/torbrowser" directory, it must be somewhere else. I installed TOR from the Pop-shop repository in my distro.

I don't know what "Tails" is and my system is a relatively new OS clean install.