Random Thoughts: Samba, Cinnamon and Android Insufficient Storage Space Error

So I've been using Linux Mint a lot and there's been some adjustment.  I find Cinnamon to be a total regression to Unity's dock.  I've complained a bit about this but fortunately, someone pointed me to Cairo which is a decent replacement.  It's not as slick as Unity's Dock, but it's functional and familiar enough.  I just cannot go back to that old Start Menu, Taskbar thing.  Feels cluttered and useless.

While we're in the subject of Cinnamon, when the laptop wakes up from suspend or sleep, sometimes, Cinnamon starts acting very weird.  None of my mouse clicks the menus, Cairo's task switching doesn't really work.  The only way I got to recover from it was to kill Cinnamon.  

killall -HUP cinnamon

Then, there's samba.  In the university I work at, we have some specific configuration and Cinnamon's connect Windows Share interface is a bit wonky.  Turns out when I specify the server name, I have to leave out the slashes (e.g. //).  Then specify the share to use.

Lastly, there's a common problem on Android where the storage space is always running out.  This usually manifests itself when attempting to install apps.  Google Play Store will complain "Insufficient Storage Available" which is a real pain especially when you own those Chinese OEM tablets.  I've learned since that Android will build up junk cache over time and can easily chew up GB of space after prolonged use.  You can use any cache cleaner app and run your device through it.  I use the Clean Master but I'm certain there are better lightweight apps available.  I ran my cleaner app and it showed me the junk I should clean up.  Tapped clean and I was able to install the apps I wanted just fine.

That's a wrap!  Ciao!

Mass Effect 3: Multiplayer Error

I had one nasty instance where when I loaded the multiplayer on Mass Effect 3 PC version, the game froze when switching character classes.  After I forcibly killed the process and restarted the game, everytime I went to multiplayer, the game would load forever.  I tried to repair the install but that didn't work.

The only fix that I could do was pull out my backup install from an external hard disk and replace the installed copy with that backup.  I was then able to fire up the game and play multiplayer.  Note that the game did crash once after this replacement when selecting multiplayer.  Restarting the game went into multiplayer just fine though.

Origin on Wine and the Preparing Download

Well, I've gotten stuck on Wine and Origin's Preparing Download and had forgotten to patch Qt5Network.dll that had been overwritten by several Origin updates.  I'm fortunate that the patch is still in my Origin install folder so I backed up the new dll and re-ran the patch to fix it.  Details on this issue are on this Wine Bug thread.

Mass Effect 1 was pretty good and I finished it entirely in Wine/Linux.  Awesome!

Google Play Install Error Code "919"

I had problems with the Thomson tablet with installing some applications and was getting this error message.  A little bit of searching and I found out that this was a network issue.  Clearing the dalvik cache and Google Play cache is commonly suggested but that doesn't help.  What helped in my case was to go to Settings and Data Usage, then turn off Mobile Phone Data.  This fixed the install problem.

Using Origin on Wine is BAD NEWS... maybe not?

It seems that most of the issues with this are due to the fiber optic line that broke causing internet issues and DLC authorization errors.  Make sure that all Origin executables on Windows is in your antivirus/firewall exception list.

I'll keep this brief. Over the past days, I had issues with Origin when playing Mass Effect 3 online where connectivity is just shot. I would get errors where Origin would complain not having internet connection.  Mass Effect 3 wouldn't go online either which caused DLC authorization errors.

As it turns out, I started logging into Origin using my Wine install and I noticed doing this would create connection issues on Origin. Once it all got sorted on Windows, using it was fine. So, I deleted Origin on my Wine install. Never again.

Error 207 (net::ERR_CERT_INVALID): Unknown error

Last night, I came across a curious issue with secure http connections to Google products on Chrome using my Vista laptop.  I could surf normally, but it would always go crazy when it'd go secure.  Researching online a bit for the issue, I've found that there are various causes for this.

The most common cause of this issue is the system date/time.  People advise to configure your date/time and timezone and sync it to time.windows.com.  I checked mine but it was already correct, so I kept looking.

Some of the other solutions being thrown around were clearing browser cache, playing with the SSL/TLS options on Google Chrome (via Under the Hood).  One serious suggestion was virus infections and a tampered hosts file (e.g. C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts), but I checked and there was nothing wrong with the file.

At the end of it, I found that Google, at one point, posted a note saying they fixed a browser bug, so I decided to update my browser.  Lo and behold, it fixed my issues.  But that doesn't mean it's the be all and all solution.

Goodbye Gutsy... or not.

Sometimes, when you're tired, you do something really, really dumb.  So I decided to clean out the Linux partition on my old Acer laptop.  I had also discovered that the DVD drive can't read anything and the Acer recovery partition is throwing a fit on me by complaining about the dreaded missing GUI (*.WSI) files and it was giving me the error reason 0xa0000001.  Before it had dawned upon me too, I had made GRUB totally useless by purging the Linux partition (Way to go, idiot!).

To boot up my Windows Vista partition, I downloaded unetbootin and setup my 1 GB usb stick with Super Grub Disk.  Allow unetbootin to install the SGD because SGD2 doesn't work with it.

From SGD, the first thing I tried is to fix the Windows boot which would effectively kill GRUB on the mbr, but this did not work.  Using the Boot & Tools menu got me to select Boot Partition and start up my old Vista install.  At least I got to boot it!  Now to make my recovery partition work!

For resource, I'm going with this forum thread.  This reminded me that the way the partitions where setup when I got them was that I had an C: partition with the label ACER and a D: partition with the label DATA.  Since all the drive letters were mucked up badly, and Acer doesn't do a good job to make their recovery routines robust, I think I'll try to get my laptop partitions setup to resemble the way it did back when it was new.  Hopefully then I get finally get the factory reset stuff to work.

Reading Oracle Exception Errors

Something I've never really been accustomed to is deciphering Oracle's cryptic feedback.  Those OCI_NO_DATA errors are downright frustrating, but at least I know better now.  Always have exception handlers (exception when no_data_found) your blast triggers.  And learn how to read Oracle's line numbering!