Download URLs are broken

[David Baumann]

Seems like they changed to non-localized packages, so all URLs on torbrowser-launcher are broken now.

https://github.com/micahflee/torbrowser-launcher/blob/develop/CHANGELOG.md

Updating to 0.3.6 should solve these issues.

[AsciiWolf (asciiwolf)]

This will also need to be backported into 22.04.

[Thomas Ward (teward)]

AsciiWolf: Correction: it needs the *patch* backported. THat can be done via SRU. Debian has not yet patched this issue so it'll end up patched here for the URL issue for both Jammy currently and existing LTSes and stable releases. At least, that's on my radar. You'll have to give me some time though - I've got COVID (2nd round this year) and it's a problem.

[AsciiWolf (asciiwolf)]

No worries. I just wanted to point out that the same issue is also present on 22.04. :-) By the way, when backporting the patch, make sure to also backport the fix from https://github.com/micahflee/torbrowser-launcher/commit/7472ff6b374eaed7382ae6016b516b84954c18e3 - otherwise it most likely crashes on new installs.

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

I've started using a new Lubuntu lunar install; and just hit this issue :(

[Thomas Ward (teward)]

FYI its the holidays right now so I would suggest patience as devs who can sponsor these patches are all possibly busy. Or i my case recovering from COVID.

Enjoy your holidays and new years everyone, this will probably get patches backported by me via SRU in the first week of the new yewr at this rate.

[Leroy Tennison (ltennison)]

A little clarification. torbrowser-launcher returns:

Tor Browser Launcher
By Micah Lee, licensed under MIT
version 0.3.3
https://github.com/micahflee/torbrowser-launcher
QStandardPaths: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set, defaulting to '/tmp/runtime-root'
QStandardPaths: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set, defaulting to '/tmp/runtime-root'
QStandardPaths: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set, defaulting to '/tmp/runtime-root'
Downloading Tor Browser for the first time.
Downloading https://aus1.torproject.org/torbrowser/update_3/release/Linux_x86_64-gcc3/x/en-US
Latest version: 12.0.1
Downloading https://dist.torproject.org/torbrowser/12.0.1/tor-browser-linux64-12.0.1_en-US.tar.xz.asc
Download Error: 404
QThread: Destroyed while thread is still running
Aborted (core dumped)

The issue is that en-US has been replaced with ALL in the download name, go to torproject.org/download and click the Linux download to see the name (change).

[Leroy Tennison (ltennison)]

BTW, if the Tor browser is needed immediately, the work-around is:
go to https://www.torproject.org/download/
download for Linux
"Untar" it and cd into the created directory
run ./start-tor-browser.desktop --register-app
Find the Tor browser entry in your menu system or run the above leaving off the --register-app parameter

The above came from an article I found on the web under "manual installation" and worked for me. It's not the greatest solution since it's a one-off and, if you want a desktop icon, you have to find/copy the menu entry item.

[Thomas Ward (teward)]

I believe this also affects 20.04 and 18.04, which means this requires a lot of backport work to actually funciton properly, I'll need to discuss with the SRU team on best approach to fixing this in older releases, but we can do an in place upgrade for 23.04 with an FFe to allow things through.

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

Bumping this.. Still hitting this issue in lunar :(

[Thomas Ward (teward)]

Given that the package is more or less unusable in its current state, and after checking with the Release team, I've pushed a package sync from Debian which has 0.3.6 and this specific issue among others should be resolved with the sync. (This was Accepted into lunar-proposed and is building).

---

This does NOT fix previous releases, as this will need an SRU to get this properly updated to older releases, as the changes necessary to fix *this* bug are interwoven with other issues/bugs and needs a special SRU exception to get everything up to date.

[Thomas Ward (teward)]

0.3.6-2 from Debian is now in Lunar.

[AsciiWolf (asciiwolf)]

The fix (patch) was still not backported into 22.04 LTS. Can anyone please change the importance for 22.04 (Jammy) and 20.04 (Focal) to High? This should have been a high priority since Tor Browser is still (after almost half a year) broken for all users of these releases.

[Robie Basak (racb)]

This is waiting for someone to volunteer suitable patches and do the necessary QA work. See https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-release/2023-April/005622.html, the associated thread, and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Procedure for details.

[Robie Basak (racb)]

I'm not changing the Importance because it will make no difference. I mean, someone else who has permissions is welcome to change it, but it won't make volunteers appear.

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

kinetic marked INVALID as its now EOL
bionic marked INVALID as EOSS (https://fridge.ubuntu.com/2023/05/13/extended-security-maintenance-for-ubuntu-18-04-bionic-beaver-begins-31-may-2023/)

[Saptarshi Roy (sroypc)]

Can someone volunteer, please?

[AsciiWolf (asciiwolf)]

torbrowser-launcher upstream maintainer here. The 0.3.6-2 package in Debian is now also broken and needs to be updated to 0.3.7. See this thread for more details: https://alioth-lists.debian.net/pipermail/pkg-privacy-maintainers/2024/004443.html

[Vincent Gerris (vgerris)]

This is valid for jammy , 22.04 . The fix there is :
sudo sed -i 's|self.language =.*|self.language = "ALL"|g' /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/torbrowser_launcher/common.py

Or indeed an upgrade to a newer version.
Ubuntu, please update or fix this, thank you

[Vincent Gerris (vgerris)]

I filed : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/torbrowser-launcher/+bug/2058927 - I suppose either can be closed as duplicate if picked up, wanted to mention the patch and tor updates.

[Vincent Gerris (vgerris)]

looks like related work has been done :
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/onionshare/+bug/2048769