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Sunday, December 29, 2013

Remove Raspbmc web browser- getting rid of Arora Web Browser and removing it from Program shortcuts in raspbmc

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I really love to use raspbmc, a port of xbmc for raspberry pi. I run it on a raspberry pi attached to an lcd screen to watch youtube and other media files on a big screen by sending it by flipping the media files from a smart phone / tablet. With the recent update, there is a new feature, an integrated web browser called Arora, which runs on the pi with a different kernel. So we need a reboot to switch between xbmc and the web-browser. As am a bit obsessive of removing stuffs which i don't use / like it, i need to completely get rid of the  web-browser and its shortcut on the home screen. I also dont have a keyboard or mouse attached to my raspbmc, hence the browser is useless for me and accidentl launch of browser kills the ssh access to the pi :(

So you can remove it either from the Program shortcuts alone or can completely get rid of it. Here is the solutions

Fix the boot configuration

I initially encountered a problem where on rebooting the raspberry the browser always comes back rendering the xbmc in accessible. I realized that the browser is a totally different entity rather than a simple plugin

So first step is to fix the reboot loop. Place your sdcard in a computer and edit the config.txt and make it look like the following (no word like browser should be there :)).

Important lines are the last two! ( for correct booting)  and remove these words like ramfsaddr=-1
cmdline=browser.cmdline
kernel=browser.img 
ramfsfile=browser.rfs

and keep the following lines or add if it is missing

 arm_freq=800  
 force_turbo=1  
 disable_overscan=1  
 gpu_mem=128  
 start_file=start_x.elf  
 fixup_file=fixup_x.dat  

With this at least you will be back to xbmc and if ssh is enabled, now you can access the system and fix the rest

Now let us remove the Arora Browser, whic is taking up  spot in home menu

We need to edit /opt/xbmc-bcm/xbmc-bin/share/xbmc/addons/skin.confluence/720p/IncludesHomeMenuItems.xml and remove the lines whic is behind that menu.

 cd /opt/xbmc-bcm/xbmc-bin/share/xbmc/addons/skin.confluence/720p  
 sudo nano IncludesHomeMenuItems.xml   

search for (ctrl+w) and remove the part marked red as shown below. Then save the file (ctrl+x, press y, if you make a mistake in deleting, just ctrl+z and redo). You may also make a back up before editing this file by typing


 sudo cp IncludesHomeMenuItems.xml IncludesHomeMenuItems.xml.bak  
 and can be restored with  
 sudo mv IncludesHomeMenuItems.xml.bak IncludesHomeMenuItems.xml   

Remove the entry in red to get rid of the Arora

      <include name="HomeAddonItemsPrograms">  
           <item>  
                <label>$INFO[system.addontitle(script.raspbmc.settings)]</label>  
                <onclick>RunAddon(script.raspbmc.settings)</onclick>  
                <icon>$INFO[system.addonicon(script.raspbmc.settings)]</icon>  
                <thumb>-</thumb>  
           </item>  
           <item>  
                <label>$INFO[system.addontitle(script.raspbmc.browserlaunch)]</label>  
                <onclick>RunAddon(script.raspbmc.browserlaunch)</onclick>  
                <icon>$INFO[system.addonicon(script.raspbmc.browserlaunch)]</icon>  
                <thumb>-</thumb>  
           </item>  
           <item>  
                <label>$INFO[system.addontitle(Skin.String(HomeProgramButton3))]</label>  
                <onclick>RunAddon($INFO[Skin.String(HomeProgramButton3)])</onclick>  
                <icon>$INFO[system.addonicon(Skin.Strin  
If you are obsessed to remove all raspbmc browser things :) do the following steps (be careful with the steps so that you wont screw up your xbmc installation) 1) Remove the addon: script.raspbmc.browserlaunch (first ssh in to the raspbmc)
 sudo rm -rf ~/.xbmc-current/xbmc-bin/share/xbmc/addons/script.raspbmc.browserlaunch  

2)remove starter script for browser
 sudo rm /scripts/browser.sh   

2)Remove boot files for Arora browser (make sure you fixed your config.txt as shown in the beginning)
 cd /boot  
 sudo rm browser.*  

16 comments:

  1. Thank's 1000 times, that was exactly what I was looking for after this browser thing screw up my last movie night :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks... really helpfull !!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. awesome, thank you very much

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  4. me happy, you God. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. You may have to remount the boot partition writable in order to delete files from it:
    sudo mount -o remount,rw /boot

    ReplyDelete
  6. Excellent, that was exactly I was looking for. Nice and easy. Thank you very much.

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  7. Thanks for the solution. I also just learned from your post that it boots into a separate kernel for the browser.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks for the solution..Arora browser is irritating one....but kindly help that wehen i remoove that browser how can i use any other browser for opening web pages or html pges
    Thankx in advance

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks for the solution..but when i remove the Arora browser how can i use another browser chrome or firefox
    plz anyone rply

    ReplyDelete
  10. IncludesHomeMenuItems.xml was empty, but next two steps works, after restart PI is menu without Arora. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi, I have one question
    "Important lines are the last two! ( for correct booting) and remove these words like ramfsaddr=-1
    cmdline=browser.cmdline
    kernel=browser.img
    ramfsfile=browser.rfs"

    The configuration above means that I have to put these three lines in the config.txt kernel=browser.img, which I read that it boots the browser.img. Is that righ?

    ReplyDelete
  12. It should be removed, ie the lines in red color should be removed and add the lines in the text box as the red lines are used by the browser.

    ReplyDelete
  13. It seemed strange because I don't have the red lines in the config.txt. Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Red text in the blog (above). You may post the content of cmdline.txt here/pastebin so that i can have a look. Regards

      Delete