Posts by alexkemp

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

This is fundamental info for the Chromium disk_cache.

This is the src dir for the Chromium disk_cache

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

Obviously, somewhere in the Chromium code will be routines for accessing, exploring & extracting these cached files. I'm simply astonished that so few people (seemingly just one) have produced a Chrome cache viewer.

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

boughtonp wrote:

Have you looked at any of the files to determine contents?

Yes. It's not easy, since they all give the same enigmatic response to file:

~/.cache/chromium/Default/Cache/Cache_Data$ file -z 00037beb6d874770_0
00037beb6d874770_0: data

Some refer to css files, some to image files, and so on. I've tried to find html files but that is difficult, as almost all files contain the text 'text/html' without actually containing any reference to such a file. Annoyingly, none seem to contain any actual css, png, html nor any other filetype content, though they do seem to contain packet headers. I'll try to illustrate:

$ hexdump 47c5717d1de790a5_0 -C
00000000  30 5c 72 a7 1b 6d fb fc  05 00 00 00 78 00 00 00  |0\r..m......x...|
00000010  31 0b 69 2c 00 00 00 00  31 2f 30 2f 5f 64 6b 5f  |1.i,....1/0/_dk_|
00000020  68 74 74 70 73 3a 2f 2f  79 6f 75 74 75 62 65 2e  |https://youtube.|
00000030  63 6f 6d 20 68 74 74 70  73 3a 2f 2f 79 6f 75 74  |com https://yout|
00000040  75 62 65 2e 63 6f 6d 20  68 74 74 70 73 3a 2f 2f  |ube.com https://|
00000050  77 77 77 2e 67 73 74 61  74 69 63 2e 63 6f 6d 2f  |www.gstatic.com/|
00000060  79 6f 75 74 75 62 65 2f  69 6d 67 2f 62 72 61 6e  |youtube/img/bran|
00000070  64 69 6e 67 2f 66 61 76  69 63 6f 6e 2f 66 61 76  |ding/favicon/fav|
00000080  69 63 6f 6e 5f 31 34 34  78 31 34 34 2e 70 6e 67  |icon_144x144.png|
00000090  89 50 4e 47 0d 0a 1a 0a  00 00 00 0d 49 48 44 52  |.PNG........IHDR|
000000a0  00 00 00 90 00 00 00 90  08 03 00 00 00 d0 98 12  |................|
000000b0  8a 00 00 00 63 50 4c 54  45 00 00 00 ff 00 00 ff  |....cPLTE.......|
000000c0  00 00 ff 00 00 ff 00 00  ff 00 00 ff 00 00 ff 00  |................|
# (snip)
00000390  00 fc 86 92 50 21 39 2f  00 e8 02 00 00 48 54 54  |....P!9/.....HTT|
000003a0  50 2f 31 2e 31 20 32 30  30 00 61 63 63 65 70 74  |P/1.1 200.accept|
000003b0  2d 72 61 6e 67 65 73 3a  62 79 74 65 73 00 63 72  |-ranges:bytes.cr|
000003c0  6f 73 73 2d 6f 72 69 67  69 6e 2d 72 65 73 6f 75  |oss-origin-resou|
000003d0  72 63 65 2d 70 6f 6c 69  63 79 3a 63 72 6f 73 73  |rce-policy:cross|
000003e0  2d 6f 72 69 67 69 6e 00  63 72 6f 73 73 2d 6f 72  |-origin.cross-or|
000003f0  69 67 69 6e 2d 6f 70 65  6e 65 72 2d 70 6f 6c 69  |igin-opener-poli|
00000400  63 79 2d 72 65 70 6f 72  74 2d 6f 6e 6c 79 3a 73  |cy-report-only:s|
00000410  61 6d 65 2d 6f 72 69 67  69 6e 3b 20 72 65 70 6f  |ame-origin; repo|
00000420  72 74 2d 74 6f 3d 22 73  74 61 74 69 63 2d 6f 6e  |rt-to="static-on|
00000430  2d 62 69 67 74 61 62 6c  65 22 00 72 65 70 6f 72  |-bigtable".repor|
00000440  74 2d 74 6f 3a 7b 22 67  72 6f 75 70 22 3a 22 73  |t-to:{"group":"s|
00000450  74 61 74 69 63 2d 6f 6e  2d 62 69 67 74 61 62 6c  |tatic-on-bigtabl|
00000460  65 22 2c 22 6d 61 78 5f  61 67 65 22 3a 32 35 39  |e","max_age":259|
00000470  32 30 30 30 2c 22 65 6e  64 70 6f 69 6e 74 73 22  |2000,"endpoints"|
00000480  3a 5b 7b 22 75 72 6c 22  3a 22 68 74 74 70 73 3a  |:[{"url":"https:|
00000490  2f 2f 63 73 70 2e 77 69  74 68 67 6f 6f 67 6c 65  |//csp.withgoogle|
000004a0  2e 63 6f 6d 2f 63 73 70  2f 72 65 70 6f 72 74 2d  |.com/csp/report-|
000004b0  74 6f 2f 73 74 61 74 69  63 2d 6f 6e 2d 62 69 67  |to/static-on-big|
000004c0  74 61 62 6c 65 22 7d 5d  7d 00 63 6f 6e 74 65 6e  |table"}]}.conten|
000004d0  74 2d 6c 65 6e 67 74 68  3a 37 32 39 00 78 2d 63  |t-length:729.x-c|
000004e0  6f 6e 74 65 6e 74 2d 74  79 70 65 2d 6f 70 74 69  |ontent-type-opti|
000004f0  6f 6e 73 3a 6e 6f 73 6e  69 66 66 00 73 65 72 76  |ons:nosniff.serv|
00000500  65 72 3a 73 66 66 65 00  78 2d 78 73 73 2d 70 72  |er:sffe.x-xss-pr|
00000510  6f 74 65 63 74 69 6f 6e  3a 30 00 64 61 74 65 3a  |otection:0.date:|
00000520  53 75 6e 2c 20 31 33 20  4d 61 72 20 32 30 32 32  |Sun, 13 Mar 2022|
00000530  20 31 36 3a 34 32 3a 33  39 20 47 4d 54 00 65 78  | 16:42:39 GMT.ex|
00000540  70 69 72 65 73 3a 4d 6f  6e 2c 20 31 33 20 4d 61  |pires:Mon, 13 Ma|
00000550  72 20 32 30 32 33 20 31  36 3a 34 32 3a 33 39 20  |r 2023 16:42:39 |
00000560  47 4d 54 00 63 61 63 68  65 2d 63 6f 6e 74 72 6f  |GMT.cache-contro|
00000570  6c 3a 70 75 62 6c 69 63  2c 20 6d 61 78 2d 61 67  |l:public, max-ag|
00000580  65 3d 33 31 35 33 36 30  30 30 00 61 67 65 3a 34  |e=31536000.age:4|
00000590  37 35 37 39 34 00 6c 61  73 74 2d 6d 6f 64 69 66  |75794.last-modif|
000005a0  69 65 64 3a 54 68 75 2c  20 30 33 20 4f 63 74 20  |ied:Thu, 03 Oct |
000005b0  32 30 31 39 20 31 30 3a  31 35 3a 30 30 20 47 4d  |2019 10:15:00 GM|
000005c0  54 00 63 6f 6e 74 65 6e  74 2d 74 79 70 65 3a 69  |T.content-type:i|
000005d0  6d 61 67 65 2f 70 6e 67  00 61 6c 74 2d 73 76 63  |mage/png.alt-svc|
000005e0  3a 68 33 3d 22 3a 34 34  33 22 3b 20 6d 61 3d 32  |:h3=":443"; ma=2|
000005f0  35 39 32 30 30 30 2c 68  33 2d 32 39 3d 22 3a 34  |592000,h3-29=":4|
00000600  34 33 22 3b 20 6d 61 3d  32 35 39 32 30 30 30 2c  |43"; ma=2592000,|
00000610  68 33 2d 51 30 35 30 3d  22 3a 34 34 33 22 3b 20  |h3-Q050=":443"; |
00000620  6d 61 3d 32 35 39 32 30  30 30 2c 68 33 2d 51 30  |ma=2592000,h3-Q0|
00000630  34 36 3d 22 3a 34 34 33  22 3b 20 6d 61 3d 32 35  |46=":443"; ma=25|
00000640  39 32 30 30 30 2c 68 33  2d 51 30 34 33 3d 22 3a  |92000,h3-Q043=":|
00000650  34 34 33 22 3b 20 6d 61  3d 32 35 39 32 30 30 30  |443"; ma=2592000|
00000660  2c 71 75 69 63 3d 22 3a  34 34 33 22 3b 20 6d 61  |,quic=":443"; ma|
00000670  3d 32 35 39 32 30 30 30  3b 20 76 3d 22 34 36 2c  |=2592000; v="46,|
00000680  34 33 22 00 00 03 00 00  00 c0 04 00 00 30 82 04  |43"..........0..|
00000690  bc 30 82 03 a4 a0 03 02  01 02 02 11 00 89 50 eb  |.0............P.|

The inevitable conclusion is that the actual content must be somewhere else within the labyrinth of dirs.

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

I *did* originally grep the files for '3040s' (not 1100) & found it in a number of dates (4 different dates if I remember correctly). I have a record in bash history only of 'Feb 18', 3 different files, due to specific checks made at the time. However, today *none* of the files contain '3040s', which is why in the abbreviated results (there are *far* more records after the last one above) I used 'amazon' as the search term.

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

boughtonp wrote:

I'd suggest it's very unlikely that Amazon caches search results for a week

$ cd ~/.cache/chromium/Default/Cache/Cache_Data
$ fgrep amazon * -l > amazon.txt
grep: index-dir: Is a directory
$ wc -l amazon.txt
588 amazon.txt
$ fgrep amazon * -l | xargs ls -ltr
grep: index-dir: Is a directory
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk   6640 Jan 14 10:40 a25a4684dc578add_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk   6283 Feb 16 11:25 53cb04645ec61dbe_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk  15666 Feb 17 23:58 e8f89e2a5b7a01f1_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk  13867 Feb 17 23:58 886a5cd11ba0631f_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk   5874 Feb 17 23:58 316a7542b7befa08_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk   8924 Feb 17 23:58 0178e5420f91ea0d_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk   7659 Feb 17 23:58 ad11df88c0edb21b_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk  10943 Feb 17 23:58 548924d727f4b76c_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk   6091 Feb 17 23:58 3f2cf4a8f4ed3da1_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk  11344 Feb 17 23:58 5bee7426f918804c_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk   7267 Feb 17 23:58 5602f4c5219938bd_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk  14755 Feb 17 23:58 847822115a578d5c_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk   5492 Feb 17 23:58 421a319a89da0977_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk   7717 Feb 17 23:58 21287a7168c435cf_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk   6705 Feb 17 23:58 467f6b3bbdaba59b_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk  11348 Feb 18 00:09 fe2bc889ad53c7e8_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk  12090 Feb 18 00:09 b9868882a8c66b57_0
-rw------- 1 alexk alexk   5113 Feb 18 00:21 705dafad26790491_0

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

andyprough wrote:

I'd probably try the python one first.

It says:

python package to retrieve (almost) any browser's history on (almost) any platform

I'm interested in neither the History (which I can obtain with a simple Ctrl-H) nor the Bookmarks, so fail to understand the point of installing that. I want to be able to view the historic pages in a browser, not the History.

Same with the askubuntu.com question:

Is it possible to view Google Chrome bookmarks and history from the terminal
The History is a binary file in SQLite format 3

Thanks for trying, Andy, but you appear to have misunderstood my query.

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

Bug posted just now:
Error: "it looks like wine32 is missing" but then cannot install wine32

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

GlennW wrote:

Have you thought about using a different browser to look at the cache?

The Chromium cache is an encrypted binary mess of connected directories (specialised JSON for the ones I've looked at), with not a single html nor css file within them. Can you suggest a browser that *can* view them?

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

Chromium: chromium/stable-security
APT-Sources: http://deb.devuan.org/merged chimaera-security/main amd64
Version 110.0.5481.177 (Official Build) built on Debian 11.6, running on Debian 11.1 (64-bit)

A desire to be able to explore the contents of Chromium's cache led me to try to fix my Wine installation. Assistance to fix either would be appreciated.

First a brief on how this started, then details on each problem.

15 Jan: I ordered a Braun 3040s shaver from Amazon for £55.99
18 Feb: whilst investigating the cost of Guide Combs for the 3040s I discovered that the then-current cost of a 3040s at Amazon was £1100
Today: re-checking the cost, the 3040s is £35

The above caused me to doubt #2 above. It seemed bizarre at the time, and now I doubted it totally. I knew that it would be stored within Chromium's history, but also knew that any attempt to access that history would replace the cache with the current page. How could I view the stored historic pages?

Exactly what I wanted was at EaseUS Chrome Cache Viewer as a free download, but with a big caveat: it was only available for Windows or Mac.

Wine was already installed on my Chimaera system, so I downloaded the EaseUS zip file & attempted to use wine to run it. Oh dear.

$ mkdir ChromeCache
$ cd ChromeCache
$ mv ~/Downloads/chromecacheview.zip ./
$ wine ChromeCacheView.exe -folder ~/.cache/chromium/Default/Cache
it looks like wine32 is missing, you should install it.
as root, please execute "apt-get install wine32"
it looks like wine32 is missing, you should install it.
as root, please execute "apt-get install wine32"
002b:err:module:__wine_process_init L"Z:\\home\\alexk\\Personal\\ChromeCache\\ChromeCacheView.exe" not supported on this system

It originally also told me to do # dpkg --add-architecture i386, and I cannot now reverse that instruction. My searching suggested that wine32 is now redundant since my amd64 system already contains provision for 32-bit wine. Are the suggestions above on installing wine32 now out-of-date?

My attempts to remedy the below may have it got me in deeper water, but here is the (seems to be misleading) original results:

$ sudo apt-get install wine32
[sudo] password for alexk: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libcurl4:i386 : Depends: libldap-2.4-2:i386 (>= 2.4.7) but it is not going to be installed
 libvkd3d1:i386 : Depends: libvulkan1:i386 (>= 1.1.70) but it is not going to be installed
 libwine:i386 : Depends: libldap-2.4-2:i386 (>= 2.4.7) but it is not going to be installed
                Recommends: libgl1:i386 but it is not installable
                Recommends: libglu1-mesa:i386 but it is not installable or
                            libglu1:i386
                Recommends: libsane1:i386 (>= 1.0.27) but it is not installable
                Recommends: libvulkan1:i386 (>= 1.2.131.2) but it is not going to be installed
                Recommends: libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

I checked, and there are zero held packages.

Is anyone using WINE & knows how to escape these problems? Or, even better, does anyone know how to view or extract historic cache pages from Chromium?

2023-02-24: added Chromium version, etc.

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

Hi Andre, thanks for responding.

I'm not going to try your suggestions.

The printer was initially setup from brand-new, so is already at factory-defaults, never having been changed from those defaults.

CUPS requires printer-specific setup. CUPS itself is printer-agnostic & requires instructing on the specifics required for a specific printer; that is the purpose of the PPD text-files. The only way that your DCP-L2550DW could have been auto-setup without an external driver is if it used the CUPS-supplied ppd file. I've already confirmed that the CUPS-supplied driver for my model is identical to the Brother-supplied driver that does not perform. I'm not going through that all over again. But again, thanks for trying.

Extra: I see that your printer has an option for IPP Network Printer. That also uses the CUPS database, so may well have the same problem as the USB connection that I'm using. Ah, spit.

alexkemp · Off-topic

Hmm. Turns out that these are smartphones with Mediatek MT62xx / MT65xx / MT67xx Family chips (MTK chips) only. So, disregard my previous post.

alexkemp · Off-topic

I think that Android 5 was the last that let you do what you want to do, which essentially is to mount the Android 'disc' on a foreign machine. The only means of USB connection with Android 6 & higher is via MTP ('Media Transfer Protocol') which, essentially, is connection via modem. It thus prevents any mounting of the Android electronics on anything other than Android localhost.

Because of the above lsusb becomes ineffective.

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

The fix recommended at #6247 is:-

diff --git a/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube.py b/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube.py
index 95ca52b3a..4dde4bbaa 100644
--- a/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube.py
+++ b/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube.py
@@ -4120,7 +4120,7 @@ def is_bad_format(fmt):
             'thumbnail': traverse_obj(original_thumbnails, (-1, 'url')),
             'description': video_description,
             'uploader': get_first(video_details, 'author'),
-            'uploader_id': self._search_regex(r'/(?:channel|user)/([^/?&#]+)', owner_profile_url, 'uploader id') if owner_profile_url else None,
+            'uploader_id': self._search_regex(r'/(?:channel/|user/|(?=@))([^/?&#]+)', owner_profile_url, 'uploader id', default=None),
             'uploader_url': owner_profile_url,
             'channel_id': channel_id,
             'channel_url': format_field(channel_id, None, 'https://www.youtube.com/channel/%s'),

I could not find the relevant code at line 4124, but did find it lower down higher up:

$ cd /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/yt_dlp/extractor/
$ fgrep -n "'uploader_id': self._search_regex" youtube.py
4049:            'uploader_id': self._search_regex(r'/(?:channel|user)/([^/?&#]+)', owner_profile_url, 'uploader id') if owner_profile_url else None,

Since I have zero experience with either creating or using diff files, I decided on a short & dirty fix: edit it directly:

$ sudo cp youtube.py youtube.py.2023.01.06
$ sudo nano youtube.py
$ fgrep "'uploader_id': self._search_regex" youtube.py -B 1
            # def is_bad_format(fmt):
            # 'uploader_id': self._search_regex(r'/(?:channel|user)/([^/?&#]+)', owner_profile_url, 'uploader id') if owner_profile_url else None,
            'uploader_id': self._search_regex(r'/(?:channel/|user/|(?=@))([^/?&#]+)', owner_profile_url, 'uploader id', default=None),

The above now works fine for me.

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

Starting (for me) yesterday the YouTube downloader yt-dlp gives the error:

ERROR: [youtube] 72FQIV-jpEk: Unable to extract uploader id;
 please report this issue on  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues?q= ,
 filling out the appropriate issue template.

Looking at the GitHub site it has been fixed 5 days ago, and that fix is for this specific error:-

Latest wrote:

yt-dlp 2023.02.17
Latest
4 days ago

The version for Chimaera from Backports is considerably older:

$ apt search yt-dlp
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
yt-dlp/stable-backports,now 2023.01.06-1~bpo11+1 all [installed]
  downloader of videos from YouTube and other sites
$ yt-dlp --version
2023.01.06

alexkemp · DIY

I was surprised to find at the GitHub site that CUPS has a dependency upon systemD. I'm not sure how Devuan handles that. I run SLiM myself.

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

Brother-DCP-L3510CDW-ppd.zip

$ 7z l Brother-DCP-L3510CDW-ppd.zip

7-Zip [64] 16.02 : Copyright (c) 1999-2016 Igor Pavlov : 2016-05-21
p7zip Version 16.02 (locale=en_GB.UTF-8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,64 bits,4 CPUs AMD A8-7410 APU with AMD Radeon R5 Graphics     (730F01),ASM,AES-NI)

Scanning the drive for archives:
1 file, 244572 bytes (239 KiB)

Listing archive: Brother-DCP-L3510CDW-ppd.zip

   Date      Time    Attr         Size   Compressed  Name
------------------- ----- ------------ ------------  ------------------------
2017-08-23 14:45:14 .....        30733         6653  BRPPL3510CDW.ar.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:08 .....        31172         6734  BRPPL3510CDW.bg.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:08 .....        30823         6673  BRPPL3510CDW.cs.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:10 .....        30748         6661  BRPPL3510CDW.da.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:10 .....        30768         6681  BRPPL3510CDW.de.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:08 .....        30989         6649  BRPPL3510CDW.en-1.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:10 .....        30609         6617  BRPPL3510CDW.en-2.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:14 .....        30617         6617  BRPPL3510CDW.en-3.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:12 .....        31115         6711  BRPPL3510CDW.es.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:10 .....        30897         6685  BRPPL3510CDW.fi.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:10 .....        30958         6704  BRPPL3510CDW.fr-1.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:10 .....        30970         6707  BRPPL3510CDW.fr-2.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:10 .....        30878         6683  BRPPL3510CDW.hr.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:10 .....        31071         6740  BRPPL3510CDW.hu.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:10 .....        30804         6666  BRPPL3510CDW.id.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:10 .....        31011         6693  BRPPL3510CDW.it.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:10 .....        30431         6617  BRPPL3510CDW.ko.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:12 .....        31125         6723  BRPPL3510CDW.ls.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:10 .....        30761         6673  BRPPL3510CDW.nl.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:12 .....        30693         6651  BRPPL3510CDW.no.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:12 .....        31092         6767  BRPPL3510CDW.pl.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:12 .....        31118         6735  BRPPL3510CDW.pt-1.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:12 .....        31024         6709  BRPPL3510CDW.pt-2.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:12 .....        30962         6726  BRPPL3510CDW.ro.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:12 .....        31190         6760  BRPPL3510CDW.ru.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:12 .....        31043         6744  BRPPL3510CDW.sk.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:16 .....        31125         6723  BRPPL3510CDW.sl.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:12 .....        30971         6698  BRPPL3510CDW.sr.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:12 .....        30833         6684  BRPPL3510CDW.sv.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:12 .....        30679         6701  BRPPL3510CDW.th.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:12 .....        30849         6726  BRPPL3510CDW.tr.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:14 .....        31246         6791  BRPPL3510CDW.uk.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:14 .....        30828         6646  BRPPL3510CDW.vi.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:08 .....        30213         6521  BRPPL3510CDW.zh-cn.ppd
2017-08-23 14:45:08 .....        30492         6558  BRPPL3510CDW.zh-tw.ppd
2019-07-03 13:53:57 .....        26326         4497  DCPL3510CDW.original.ppd
------------------- ----- ------------ ------------  ------------------------
2019-07-03 13:53:57            1107164       238524  36 files

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

Puzzling this problem with the GitHub page it seemed to me that the problem was probably with ScriptSafe, which is a script-blocker that I use in Chromium to try to get ahead of problems with egregious scripts. So I returned to the GitHub page & watched ScriptSafe…

ScriptSafe == green on entry to the page
(I was also logged in)
ScriptSafe == one exception
(this was following a failed attempt to upload the zip-file)
(the failure was a new githubusercontent url)
ScriptSafe == green
(added clearance for that URL & the upload now worked & we have a download link for the zip)

I'll add the link into a fresh post to try to help make the link easier to find.

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

Altoid wrote:

try the upload with a different browser

It's fully-updated Chromium. If that doesn't work then sod it.

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

I've now reported the issue to CUPS; see https://github.com/OpenPrinting/cups/issues/611

Unfortunately the upload-utility failed, so the zip of all the ppd variants remains on my disk lonely as a cloud.

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

It doesn't look like any ICC profile will do any good here. I may have run out of options to fix this model so that it will print colours OK. Bugger.

This link to cityinkexpress.co.uk will help explain what ICC Profiles are normally used by print shops to achieve.

In a nutshell, the biggest problem for a printshop is when a customer's home-produced printout on *their* printer looks lovely in their business/home, and all wrong from the Print Shop. So, City Ink Express provide a Colour Chart for the customer to printout using their printer. The customer then posts (or delivers) the printout back to the shop. City Ink Express have a piece of software ("advanced color calibration software") that scans the printout & produces an ICC Profile (software file) which is emailed back to the customer. The intention of the profile is to shift colour differences between the customer's printer & the commercial printer, so that (as much as possible) the commercial printout looks as close to the home printout as possible. The main issue for me is that no details of how that profile is used are revealed.

You can probably see why the above excited me re: my problem, and specifically because I had seen references to "Profile" whilst printing. Nope, wrong kind of Profile.

Brother has a Printing Profile, but you can tell from the link that it is nothing to do with shifting colour balances.

"ICC Profiles" feature exactly nowhere in brother.com. What *does* feature is "Windows ICM Profiles". That link states that these are provided on the driver CD at "x:\driver\ps\icm". Not on the CD for the DPL3510CDW they arn't. Yet another blind alley.

The final blind alley was me trawling through all the MSI files on the CD yet again, this time looking for "Profiles". Or even "ICC" or "ICM". Just in case. Nope. None. Nada.

I've also tried to find an address at which to report the Dead Fish that is the CUPS driver for the DPL3510CDW. I found a Reporting Issues information page. The one missing item was either an email address, a website page, a telephone number or even the location of a stone in a park to place the secret paper underneath. It seems like they don't want to know.

And with that final big NO I must leave this report.

Where's the NOT SOLVED button?

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

Altoid wrote:

current Brother DCP-L3510CDW PPD is the default option for your printer.

It is the only option from CUPS for that model.

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

(re: ICC_Profile_Creator)

Well, that looks awesome (hurrah)
Ah, it is integrated into rawtherapee (boo)
But rawtherapee is open-source (hurrah)
The AppImage is 108 MB (boo)

Bugger. And I strongly suspect that the profile created is directly related to the screen (meaning, do colours from *any* program show accurately on the screen). I've already got & use a profile for that (and it isn't even a high-performance screen).

Still, no matter. That was a superb find. I now need to find whether the Profile-Maker can be installed independently of the entire program†, and whether that can be used for a printer. I'm also shortly going to trawl through the Brother win-drivers again looking for a profile. I also need to find the way to communicate to CURL (which I think is also openprinting.com) that their current Brother DCP-L3510CDW PPD is pants, and to offer the derived-from-windows collection (69 separate files‡).

† Feb 6 update: I did check & the GitHub site shows a single file to create the utility. However, it is thoroughly integrated into the whole program, with dozens of calls to other sections
‡ Feb 6 update: 35 PPD files after removing dupes

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

Thanks for the link, Altoid.

I'm well used to Pantones (although did not get my hands dirty with them other than with a University where the logo was specified in Pantone colours; a very good way to send print costs sky-rocketing). I used to deal with a print-house, talking often with the guys that got ink on their fingers. Also working at a furniture company that used a commercial printer to print Sales & Product sheets for mail-order (I was using a Mac with early DTP software that were then sent to the Printer; he was dubious because this was the late 1980s, but we got good results).

So all-in-all I'm up to speed with the issues. And the main issue seems to be the need to have an ICC profile to cover RGB-to-CYMK issues, and iirc I recall that being buggy with (I think) Ghostscript, and I still have not heard of any fixes for that, nor of a Profile supplied with Brother printers. However, HP manage to print correctly, so it can be done.

This talk of "punching up the colours" is missing the point. I'm not going to be using any more than 4 inks, and 600 dpi is twice what I'm used to and better than a cheap HP DeskJet. The point here is that the Brother is printing the wrong colours. I produced some sheets with a large, standard range of HTML colours (specified in 6 hex digits so that they could be checked back) & they were all printed wrong.

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

Altoid wrote:

any problem CUPS may have with a specific printer lies in the structure of the PPD and/or colour profile files

I certainly agree with the (non-existent) Profile file as being a likely source for the problem. That was my early suss when first trying to fix this beast. The fact that there is less problems with the CMYK driver than the RGB driver points in the same direction (as far as I understand these things). However, how do I get such a file? I managed to get one for my monitor from an old Windows driver, but that was a Monocoque, so there was only one place to look.

@delgado:
The Brother is 600dpi and generally colours are good (recall that it is CMYK, same as printing inks). They are simply wrong!

alexkemp · Desktop and Multimedia

This is the post to explain the actual installation of a Brother DCP-L3510CDW printer under Devuan Chimaera-4 using a PPD extracted from the printer-supplied CD (see OP) & placed into /etc/cups/ppd. The OP was easy, since the Terminal creates a history file at ~/.bash_history. The GUI does not, so I have to repeat everything to be certain of getting it right.

(This printer is now £200 cheaper than when I bought it. Harrumph.)

My Desktop Manager is XFCE v4.16, and the printer config utility system-config-printer (accessed via menu: Settings) is as follows:
ubuntu gnome

system-config-printer wrote:

1.5.14
A CUPS configuration tool.
README.md:
system-config-printer
It uses IPP to configure a CUPS server. Additionally it provides dBUS interface for several operations which aren't directly available in cupsd, and automatic USB printer installation daemon for non-IPP-over-USB printers.
The alternatives for the graphical configuration tool are CUPS Web interface, desktop control-center or lpadmin command line tool if you need to install printer manually which may not be needed in recent cases.

My user is neither root nor the print-admin user lp, so my version shows an "Unlock" button which needs to be pressed (then pw authentication) before making any additions or changes. So, here is the step-by-step:

Open system-config-printer via menu: Settings
Press "Unlock" button & authenticate
(needs to be done often; I will not repeat it here)
Highlight an existing printer & duplicate (Ctrl+D)
(if none present then lpadmin is a terminal app to create one, but you are on your own there)
Click on the dupe & select Properties (right-click or menu:Printer)
Under Settings | Make & Model click on Change... button
(Click Cancel on the Search box, or wait for the timeout)
(The default is to offer a set of CUPS-supplied drivers (PPD files) for a vast range of printers)

To install a CUPS-supplied driver:

Click on Brother then click the Forward button
Scroll down the list & select the DCP-L3510CDW CUPS model at left, then the sole driver at right, and click the Forward button
Select the top option on the next screen ("Use the new PPD as is") & click Apply
Then click OK
(we are back at the main screen; I renamed the new printer "DCP-L3510CDW-CUPS")

(more to come; I will just check out how that printer performs)

Ah well, there is zero point in my checking that CUPS-supplied PPD since it is identical to the driver that Brother supplied me from their website over 2 years ago:

$ la /etc/cups/ppd
total 148
-rw-r----- 1 root  lp    30989 Feb  4 02:33 BRPPL3510CDW-CMYK.ppd
-rw-r----- 2 alexk alexk 30989 Aug 23  2017 BRPPL3510CDW.PPD
-rw-r----- 2 alexk alexk 26326 Jul  3  2019 DCP3510W.PPD
-rw-r----- 1 root  lp    26310 Feb  4 02:39 DCP3510W-RGB.ppd
-rw-r----- 1 root  lp    26310 Feb  4 16:28 DCP-L3510CDW-CUPS.ppd
$ sudo diff /etc/cups/ppd/DCP3510W-RGB.ppd /etc/cups/ppd/DCP-L3510CDW-CUPS.ppd
$ # (no result)

To install Your Own PPD driver:

Click on "Provide PPD file" then click the Folder/Directory icon that appears below it
Navigate to the directory where the PPD file is stored
Select the PPD file that is the driver & click Open
(you may need to change the file option to "All files (*)")
(note that this file *must* be accessible under your user, and there is zero option available for sudo or whatever if it is not)
Then click Forward
Select the top option on the next screen ("Use the new PPD as is") & click Apply
Then click OK
(we are back at the main screen; rename the new printer if you wish)
(note that the original PPD file is left unchanged; a new PPD will be created in /etc/cups/ppd)

Even though this CMYK driver is older than the RGB driver it performs much better. But not perfect.

My standard LibreOffice Writer pages each have a snazzy vertical Drawing Object, adventurously labelled "Shape1", at the LHS of the first page. These are text-boxes that have a colour gradient background ('Area') which goes from a deep-blue at the top to a mid-blue at the bottom (#204A87 to #729FCF). On top is a text-field that contains the Page Title in a mid-grey (#CCCCCC). It is deeply attractive; I'm both proud & delighted with it. HP printed it perfectly & the damned Brother will not!

The newer RGB driver gets all colours wrong, including this Drawing Object on text-pages. The older CMYK seems to get the colour right but will not graduate the text-box Area. Sigh. An improvement, but no cigar.

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#269 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » [SOLVED] Fixing broken Brother DCP-L3510CDW Printer Installation (howto) » 2023-02-09 21:07:45

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#271 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » [SOLVED] Fixing broken Brother DCP-L3510CDW Printer Installation (howto) » 2023-02-05 14:12:58

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#274 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » [SOLVED] Fixing broken Brother DCP-L3510CDW Printer Installation (howto) » 2023-02-04 23:39:50

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