Category Archives: Tech stuff

Dell Inspiron 3000 intermittent boot problem

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

I recently acquired a Dell Inspiron 17 3000.

I was very happy with it and straight away went about installing Linux Mint as a dual boot.

That’s when the problems started.

Windows 10 works perfectly (I use the word in the sense that it did what it was supposed to do albeit very slowly) as did Mint. I had split the main 1Tb disk in two and all was fine except for the boot process.

Switching on from a cold start was generally fine. Mint (my default, of course) ran perfectly. The problem would arise on a reboot. The boot loader would fail and I would either get a blank screen with a GRUB curser – “C:grub>” – or the bootloader showing the two operating systems but neither choice would work and just display an “error: command failed”. A soft reboot (Ctrl+Alt+Del) just brought me the the start of the loop again. A hard reboot (switch off/on) wasn’t much better. Eventually after several soft or hard reboots I would be able to get into either OS.

I tried many things to fix this problem. I had scanned the hard drive from both systems so I knew there were no flaws there. I did a factory restore but that didn’t fix anything. I reloaded Mint. I ran Boot Repair with varying options. I mucked around in the bewildering settings in the Dell Boot Setup. Nothing worked.

I resigned myself to a lot of future frustration but at least I could eventually get into the OS I wanted.

Then I got an email from an old friend in the States – Thanks KirkM – giving a link to the solution.

So, for my own future reference –

sudo cp /etc/grub.d/40_custom /etc/grub.d/06_notpm
sudo bash -c 'echo "rmmod tpm" >> /etc/grub.d/06_notpm'
sudo update-grub

I’m naturally wary of code like this just copied off the Web but frustration got the better of me. I tried it.

It works!

Weaver Extreme Info Bar Spacing

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

I am a great fan of Weaver Extreme and its almost limitless variables and customisations.

One problem that irritated me though was the Info Bar, and in particular the Breadcrumbs.

Example 1 => Home→Books→Short Story Collections→Blackjack

To my eye, that looks cramped.  I needed a space each side of the arrows.  I tried a load of things such as trying CSS, searching forums and anywhere else I could think of.  No one else seemed to have the same problem.

Eventually I resorted to the sledgehammer approach: I changed the coding within Weaver.  I don’t like doing that as it has to be redone in the event of an update.  

The file is “themes/weaver-xtreme/includes/lib-runtime.php”.

The line to be changed ( search for ‘weaverx_breadcrumb’ ) is

$delimiter = apply_filters('weaverx_breadcrumb_delimiter', '→'); //' » ';

In fact a fix is almost in place there as there a commented alternative.  Either insert a space each side of  ‘& rarr’ or use the alternative supplied.  I chose the alternative.

Example 2 => Home » Books » Short Story Collections » Blackjack

I’m happy with that.

FireTray not working

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

One of the little add-ons for Thunderbird that I like is FireTray.

It’s that little mail notification icon on the task bar that turns into a number when an email arrives and it dispenses with the need to keep checking Thunderbird to see if anything new has arrived.

With the latest release of Thunderbird, FireTray no longer worked.  There was no warning – it just failed to appear.  As a result I kept missing urgent emails because I wasn’t used to constantly flicking into Thunderbird.  I checked Thunderbird’s Add-on area and it merely confirmed that FireTray was incompatible.

I tried the repositories but with no success, but then came across the solution.

In the GitHub site https://github.com/Ximi1970/FireTray/releases/tag/v0.6.2  right click on the file firetray-0.6.2.xpi and save it locally.

Then in Thunderbird, select Tools -> Add Ons.  In the window that opens, click on the cog [top right corner] and select “Install Add-On from File” and select the file you have jut downloaded.  That will install the updated FireTray.

No more missed emails.

Iframes not refreshing in WordPress pages

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

I run a couple of WordPress sites that contain IFRAMES.

The problem I had was that the content of the IFRAMES wasn’t updating when a visitor arrived at the site.  They would see content that was hours or even days out of date.

In each of my sites I was generating files which updated every ten to fifteen minutes.  This was done using a small programme that I wrote which generated small HTML files on the site itself.  The IFRAME was then used to display that HTML file.  However, caching in the site prevented that and insisted on dishing up a cached version which was out of date.

I took a two pronged approach.  

The first objective was to tell the IFRAME to load a different filename each time the page was loaded.  Obviously I couldn’t rename the origin file, so I added a parameter to the file request in the form “file.htm?t=X”.  Now X had to be different each time the page was loaded so I had to enable PHP on the page and then create a timestamp date(“U”) so that X would change every second.  

The resulting code appears as follows:

<?php
$cacheN=date('U');
echo("<iframe style='background-color: white;' src='/file.htm?cache=$cacheN' height='300'></iframe>");
?>

This will force the IFRAME to search for src=”/file.htm?cacheN=1534593560 or similar where the number changes every second.  The parameter “cacheN” will be passed to the file but as it is meaningless it will be ignored and file.htm will be loaded.

Naturally to run PHP on a WordPress page will require a plugin or a facility within the theme being used.

The second method I used (a belt and braces approach) was to add a line to the head of the page (which can either mean another plugin or manually editing your theme’s header.php file)

<link rel="preload" href="/file.htm" type="text/html">

Examples in action (on the righthand sidebars) –
https://martinscriblerus.com
https://headrambles.com/

Thunderbird mail link opening new browser instance

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

For a while I have been having an irritating problem where I would click on a link in Thunderbird and instead of opening in a Tab (which I wanted) it would open a new blank browser.

Some time ago I wrote about a similar problem but this time that solution didn’t work.

After much searching and head scratching I found the solution….

Open the Menu editor.

(Right-click Menu -> Configure… -> Select Menu tab -> Click on “Open the menu editor”)

Select your browser entry ( click Internet to find the list)

Click on Properties, and in the pop-up screen that opens add ” %u” at the end of the command as shown –

Launcher Properties

This will work for Firefox or Waterfox.

Click OK and the job is done.