Google wants to prove something with weather widget

[frederic2de]

Hi,

since approx. 2 weeks, I have the problem that weather widget shows a notification that Google wants to have something approved. But due to the limitations of the widget window I am not able to do it.

[valinet]

Yeah, idk, it seems to be a Germany specific popup, someone mentioned it earlier as well.

The solution is for someone facing this to recompile the app with developer tools enabled, grab the id of the button and then I can write some JavaScript that will click the button automatically, same as I do for the “cookie consent” banner.

Want to help with this? I can add an option to the weather widget to enable dev tools and context menus so you can look for the id using that, then I can compile a version with the fix, send it to you, test that and if it’s all good I push that to the repo as well. That’s a way to properly fix this.

Another way to workaround this is to clear the widget data, which will postpone the popup for some additional time but it won’t really resolve the root problem. I’d advise not to do that, and to rather help me fix it properly as described above.

Thanks

[frederic2de]

Sure I want to help. Thank you for your great work and support!

[valinet]

So I pushed the update a couple of hours ago. You can set WeatherDevMode=1 as DWORD in HKCU\SOFTWARE\ExplorerPatcher. Then, you will be able to right click in the widget and see the context menu, from there Inspect which will open the dev tools and from there determine what the button is (its id).

[frederic2de]

Hi, could you please advise what to do exactly in DevTools? My problem is that i cannot see the buttom cause there is no scroll bar in the window which I had to use to find the buttom.

[valinet]

Hi

I have pushed a new commit. In a few minutes, a new pre-release will be generated. This allows you to resize and move the window. Then, you can simply open the widget, enlarge the window so that the page fits reasonably on the screen, then right click the "Accept" button or however it is called, then choose "Inspect", and then identify the id of that element (you can also post a screen crop of how the DOM looks there). That's mainly what I need, I think.

Thanks

[frederic2de]

Hi,
thank worked fine. Please find two screenshots. I did not press the button yet, as I do not know, if the screenshots satisfy you.

[valinet]

Hi

Thanks. Don't press it yet. Let me develop a fix and push it and then you can test it (the widget should dismiss the pop-up on its own automatically).

Thank you

[valinet]

Actually, can you go to the console and run this: document.getElementsByClassName("fsXkBc")? Just click "Console", type that in and hit Enter. Thanks.

[valinet]

Also, can you run this in the console as well: if (document.getElementsByClassName("Gfzyee VDgVie DKlyaf Loxgyb").length > 1) { document.getElementsByClassName("Gfzyee VDgVie DKlyaf Loxgyb")[1].click();}. That should be the fix basically. Once you run that, the "OK" button should be pressed and the pop-up dismissed. Thanks.

[frederic2de]

Sure. But I guess nothing happened?

[valinet]

Wait a bit, don't run the second command

[frederic2de]

ok

[valinet]

Sure. But I guess nothing happened?

My bad, copy pasting from screenshots is hard. It should be capital S instead of lower case s. So: document.getElementsByClassName("fSXkBc"). It should return length 1 basically. That is what is in the screenshot, I just copy pasted wrong.

Also, second command, you can double check as well, the thing is case sensitive:

if (document.getElementsByClassName("Gfzyee VDgVie DKlyaf Loxgyb").length > 1) { document.getElementsByClassName("Gfzyee VDgVie DKlyaf Loxgyb")[1].click(); }

It should match the things in here:

Also, I think you can save the state of the browser, so we can reproduce the popup again: disable the weather widget from the Properties window, go to %APPDATA%\ExplorerPatcher and copy the ep_weather_host folder somewhere else. That contains the current state of the browser, cookies, etc. Then reenable the widget and then run the second command and hopefully by restoring the folder, if needed, we might be able to trigger the popup again. If not, then if it works, that's the fix anyway and I can push that and that should be it. Thanks.

[frederic2de]

Here is just a screenshot what happens with first command

The rest I will do tomorrow.
Have a good night!

[frederic2de]

So it is not lenght 1 but length 2. Is that a problem?

[valinet]

Man, please type the second command now so I can finish with this. It's just a command, it takes 5 seconds, after we went through this...

[valinet]

Type it and the pop up should be gone, I am 99% sure it works, we can confirm it, make the commit and call it a day.

[valinet]

Forget about backing up ep_weather_host, it should work, just do that. Thanks.

[frederic2de]

Yes it worked.

[frederic2de]

No backup as you told...

[valinet]

Thanks. I will make the commit. Thanks for the help and confirmation. Good night.

No backup as you told...

Yeah, fuck that, idk, probably wouldn't have worked anyway, idk. It's good that we confirmed that, I can paste it in the code and that should be it. Thank you.

[frederic2de]

Thanks for the extraordinary support. Will donate something for that.

[valinet]

Thanks for the extraordinary support. Will donate something for that.

Thanks. And thank you as well. These kinds of issues are very nasty, as basically it's a server-side thing - even if I used a VPN for example, maybe the pop-up wouldn't appear for me, or maybe I would have to wait 2 weeks or something stupid like that. But with a bit of help from anyone, everything can be solved after all. Thanks for sticking with me through this.

The fix is similar to how I dismiss the GDPR notice as well, it is just that I have to know those IDs (that Gfzyee VDgVie DKlyaf Loxgyb non-sense).

I mean, yeah, these are the pitfalls when you don't control the service 100%, but the bright sides are much more than the down sides.

Thanks again, have a good night!