Brotab list gives empty set

[fmartin2912]

Hey, Yuri,
I just installed brotab on a Debian system via pip install which installed brotab 1.3.0.
Run bt install
I then downloaded the Firefox brotab extension.
then: bt list

root@debian1:/home/user1# brotab install
Installing mediator manifest /root/.mozilla/native-messaging-hosts/brotab_mediator.json
Installing mediator manifest /root/.config/chromium/NativeMessagingHosts/brotab_mediator.json
Installing mediator manifest /root/.config/google-chrome/NativeMessagingHosts/brotab_mediator.json
Installing mediator manifest /root/.config/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser/NativeMessagingHosts/brotab_mediator.json
Link to Firefox extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/brotab/
Link to Chrome (Chromium)/Brave extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/brotab/mhpeahbikehnfkfnmopaigggliclhmnc/
root@debian1:/home/user1# bt list

root@debian1:/home/user1# bt list

root@debian1:/home/user1# bt clients
root@debian1:/home/user1#

I then (now at home) refreshed everything on my SuSE system following the same steps as above. That's how it looks at home:

n@linux-mn62:~> bt list
a.1.1 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/
a.1.3 16 Best Sites to Download Free Ebooks https://www.fossmint.com/
a.1.4 Logout | IONOS by 1&1 https://www.ionos.de/
a.1.2 Home https://www.foerderverein-stadtbibliothek-rottenburg.de/index.php/de/home
a.1.5 Förderverein Stadtbibliothek Rottenburg - Administration https://www.foerderverein-stadtbibliothek-rottenburg.de
a.1.6 http://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/cdstub/?query=
a.1.7 http://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/cdstub/?query=
a.1.8 Kundencenter - goneo https://kundencenter.goneo.de/
a.1.9 ierusalimschy LUA - MetaGer https://metager.de/meta/meta.ger3?eingabe=ierusalimschy+LUA
a.1.10 Programming in Lua (first edition) http://www.lua.org/pil/contents.html

The difference between the 2 installs: on Debian I worked as root.
What's happening here? Any Explanations?

Greetings
Martin

[balta2ar]

Did you run Firefox as root on Debian as well? I assume you didn't, and that you use a regular user with Firefox. Firefox needs to run the mediator app, and since you installed it as root, Firefox can't run it. I suggest you install brotab as the same user that runs Firefox (pip3 install --user brotab).

[Lohik]

Hi @balta2ar,

I have exactly the same problem as @fmartin2912, but I installed it with --user option and I am running Firefox as this regular user, so I don't think it is due to rights.
I am running it on WIN10 for firefox and chrome, but no clients after "bt clients" ever appear, no output after list, words is displayed... Can it be, that I run "bt commands" from some cache in \AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.8_qbz5n2kfra8p0\LocalCache\local-packages\Python38\Scripts? But I did not find the file bt.exe anywhere else...

Can you please be more specific, from where I can run these bt commands?

Thank you

Petr

[lowzyyy]

I have this problem as well on windows 10. I did bt install and installed addon to firefox but all i get is empty when i do bt clients and bt list

[Durnlaw]

I have this issue as well, but do not have the issue follow on Chrome. I can see Chrome tabs, not not any trace of Firefox. I installed using pip3 install --user brotab

[drocta]

I have this problem as well on windows 10. I did bt install and installed addon to firefox but all i get is empty when i do bt clients and bt list

I initially had a similar issue, because it (for some reason) did not set an entry in the registry telling firefox where the mediator program is. For any having this issue on windows, I would suggest using regedit to look and see if there is a registry entry at Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mozilla\NativeMessagingHosts\brotab_mediator , and if not, create one, with as content, the full path to the brotab_mediator.json file.

( #64 for more information about the issue I encountered and how I solved it in my case)

[gaurab15]

I was having this issue as well, but in my case the registry keys were set correctly. After seeing the bt_mediator executable in the Python3xx/Scripts directory, I checked if that process was running and had any ports open with netstat. Since no processes were running, I decided to run the bt_mediator manually.

When I ran bt_mediator, I got the following error:

cannot import name 'url_quote' from 'werkzeug.urls'

Same error when I ran flask as well.

A quick Google search took me to this SO answer which helped me fix the problem:

The issue seems to be with the Flask's requirements for Werkzeug. (requirements state Werkzeug>=2.2.0)

When installing with pip install --user brotab it seems to have installed Flask 2.2.2 and Werkzeug 3.0.0 which technically satisfies the Flask requirement but flask==2.2.2 doesn't seem to be compatible with Werkzeug==3.0.0

TLDR:

Running pip install --user Werkzeug==2.2.2 fixed my issue (had to restart the browsers to autostart the bt_mediator process)

Hope this helps someone! This is an absolutely awesome tool!

[gaurab15]

#109 fixes this issue

[FjedorGaede]

TLDR:

Running pip install --user Werkzeug==2.2.2 fixed my issue (had to restart the browsers to autostart the bt_mediator process)

Hope this helps someone! This is an absolutely awesome tool!

Thanks for this! I was otherwise not able to use brotab on my linux systems. Hopefully, the PR will be merged soon (or fixed otherwise), because this was super frustrating that it did not work and now it works like a charm.

[mbork]

I have the same (or similar) issue on Arch Linux. After installing brotab using pipx and bt install, I get just a newline from bt list. (I enabled the extension in Firefox.) Any suggestions?

[DMaroo]

Same, after a recent Arch Linux upgrade, I was also unable to use brotab. I tried intalling it using pipx, but it still doesn't seem to work since there is no output when running bt list.