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Debian 11 and Beersmith 3

bigchicken

Master Brewer
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Nov 20, 2011
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I know Beersmith 3 isn't officially supported on Linux outside of Ubuntu, but I'm trying to get it going on my Debian machine. I'm doing this primarily because I no longer have a Windows machine outside of work. I have a very old Ubuntu laptop that has a hard time running Beersmith, among about everything else.

Problem: I can install about every thinkable version of Beersmith 3, including the version in the Snap Store. They all work pretty well with the two .deb packages from the Beersmith 3 working and looking fantastic. The issue is I can't save anything, ever, no matter what. I can install a backup to bring in my equipment and recipes, but if I make a new folder or a new recipe, it won't save after closing the application. What's weird is that it also won't export the new recipes either when trying to create a new full .zip file.
I've given my user read/write permissions to the .beersmith3 folder that's created, or the Snap folder. Either way, doesn't matter.

Looking for any suggestions to getting this going. I would rather not fully use the web version nor try to put this on a Windows machine used for work only. I could attempt the docker version I see floating around the web, but really trying to keep it on a desktop for quick and easy use.
 
Try this for solving the save problem. First create a directory somewhere - perhaps under Documents/BeerSmith3.

Next open BeerSmith and go to FIle->Change Documents Directory and point it to the new directory. Then restart the program and see if it will save at that point.
 
Try this for solving the save problem. First create a directory somewhere - perhaps under Documents/BeerSmith3.

Next open BeerSmith and go to FIle->Change Documents Directory and point it to the new directory. Then restart the program and see if it will save at that point.
I gave that a try, pulling recipes from the cloud, creating new folders, etc., but same results. As soon as I close the application, any changes are lost. Any other ideas to try?
 
A few more tries tonight in the terminal as Root and I now see an error message occurs frequently:
Warning: Web extension not found in "/usr/local/lib/wx/3.1.3/web-extensions", some wxWebView functionality will be not available

Not sure if related, but it still persists. A quick check of that error in Google pulls up some Polish beer forums talking about issues that come up with that same error with missing ingredients, etc. Maybe I'll need to attempt to use this with Wine installed. I'll post back if I get anywhere with this.
 
That may be an issue - can you possibly download the WX extensions in Debian?
 
This may be a bit out of my realm, but I did install the packages related to wxWebView from what I can find, but nothing is created in the the "/usr/local/lib/wx/3.1.3/web-extensions" section that Beersmith seems to be checking. I'm not sure how to force it to look in the correct location.

Also, further testing shows that inventory changes do work. Installing Add-ons do work as well.

I found another error listed as
SaveTable: SKIPPING save of TXLOGGED table: /root/.beersmith3/Recipe.bsmx
This led me to think Beersmith doesn't have the proper read/write permissions somehow. I went into those folders and changed permissions, but while the message no longer appears, it doesn't actually save a recipe yet.
Interestingly, if I pull open the bsmx file "Recipe" into a text editor, I can see recipes I've downloaded from the cloud and subfolders I've made, though they won't pull into the UI. Also, not sure if it's normal, but I have 6 "Recipe" bsmx files.

I'm at a loss at this point. Not sure how to make this thing work.
I appreciate any ideas anyone has on this.

If I can't get this going, next steps are to try and create a virtual Windows machine or possibly trying a Windows reader like Wine, though I've not had much luck with Wine in the past.

EDIT: Forgot to mention I can't delete recipes either.
 
To me this sounds as a permission problem. Linux (Debian) is very anal about permissions. Perhaps, the location where you are attempting to save is Read Only or some other permission preventing you from saving?
 
In Linux, when installing packages, sudo su, is your friend.
 
In Linux, when installing packages, sudo su, is your friend.
Yeah, I'm not exactly happy with Debian yet, working in Manjaro the last couple years. I am amazed at just how "secure" Debian is being with everything.

I'm only using this distro because it's the only one officially supported for Home Assistant Supervisor, which is the main job of this machine.

I think I'll remove all traces of Beersmith again, make sure I open all pieces of the install as root, and try it again. I think you're on the right track with it being a permissions issue. I believe the application itself is missing something it needs with those permissions.
 
Update!

Success:
I've removed all traces of Beersmith 3 from my Debian machine. I reinstalled using sudo dpkg -i and then the package location and name. I am then able to use Beersmith in a raw form. I can also log into my cloud account and download recipes. I can then save them and they will stay in place!! Huge win.

Failure:
If I load in my backup and do a full restore, I lose the ability to save again. It's like the backup is frozen in time and no changes can be made beyond that point.

At this point, I may manually recreate my equipment/mash/brewing profiles and roll with it.
 
You can unzip the backup and open the individual Recipe.bsmx (or other files) using File->Open. Then copy the data over to My Recipes from the open file dialog.

Likely the restore process is maintaining the bad file permissions which is stopping the restore. Opening the BSMX file and then copy/pasting it to My Recipes should work though.
 
So close but yet so far...

IMO, Linux is a PITA.

On a different linux app, not writing about BeerSmith, I had to do a command prompt, sudo su, and then give full control to a folder and folders underneath to get an app working correctly.

Folks b*tch about MS. IMO, Linux will drive one completely mental.

Remember a few years ago around Christmas when Walmart sold a PC with lindows? How many unsuspecting people bought this "PC" not realizing it was running Linux and NOT Windows? Probably a LOT!

Keep us posted on our results, success and failures in regard to this issue.

What about Wine?

Also, see https://www.pcworld.com/article/432...are-in-linux-everything-you-need-to-know.html
 
You can unzip the backup and open the individual Recipe.bsmx (or other files) using File->Open. Then copy the data over to My Recipes from the open file dialog.

Likely the restore process is maintaining the bad file permissions which is stopping the restore. Opening the BSMX file and then copy/pasting it to My Recipes should work though.
I did a great deal of testing this morning to find that it is still not working as it should. Whenever Beersmith3 is opened and closed, it creates a new Recipe, Hop, Yeast, Age, etc. file within it's own folder.

Also, I attempted to copy and paste from the raw files of my backup over the top of the files created with a fresh install. It seems that the problem comes right back as soon as I copy and paste in from my old backup file. This makes no sense to me.

Also odd, after doing the copy/paste the save function stops working again. Even more confusing, I can see new recipes in the Recipe.bsmx file, but they are not viewable in the application. It's as if there's a cache somewhere that takes priority over the actual files used.

I went ahead and nuked the install again and am strictly downloading from my cloud account and so far it's all working as it should....but new files keep getting created in the .Beersmith3 folder that was created. I will have to see if I can extract my brewing profiles from my saved recipes. If so, I should be able to make this work again.
 
I may not have been clear - you need to use File->Open within BeerSmith to open the file Recipe.bsmx (for instance) from your old copy.

Then once that is open in a tab within BeerSmith, select the recipes you want to keep and copy/paste them over from the open file tab to your My Recipes tab. I did not mean for you to copy/paste files.
 
Hi, same issue here. On a brand new Ubuntu 22.04 (which is unsupported yet) I can activate my beersmith licence and backup my old zip file created with an ubuntu 18.04. Once the backup is restored I am unable to save any recent changes.
Worse, as startup i get the popup saying i'm not registered. In the "about Beersmith" page my licence is properly displayed.

Really strange behavior. I will try your solution to see if it solves the problem.
 
I'm finishing up the Ubuntu 22.04 build. I have it built but making some minor tweaks to help with large screens and then I need to build and test the release package on a clean machine.

I should have at least a beta version out by next week (I hope).
 
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