youtube-webos-cobalt

YouTube App built with Cobalt with extended functionalities.

This project is built on top of youtube-webos.

Cobalt only support a subset of HTML tags, youtube-webos had to be reworked to only use div tag.

Features

Same as the default youtube application:

• Speed management

Same as youtube-webos:

• Advertisements blocking
• SponsorBlock integration
• Autostart

Note: Configuration screen can be opened by pressing 🟩 GREEN button on the remote.

Pre-requisites

• Official YouTube app needs to be uninstalled before installation.

Installation

First, build or obtain an IPK. Then install it using one of the following:

• Device Manager app
• webOS TV CLI tools: ares-install youtube...ipk (for webOS CLI tools configuration see below)

Configuration

Configuration screen can be opened by pressing 🟩 GREEN button on the remote.

Autostart

In order to autostart an application the following command needs to be executed via SSH or Telnet:

luna-send-pub -n 1 'luna://com.webos.service.eim/addDevice' '{"appId":"youtube.leanback.v4","pigImage":"","mvpdIcon":""}'

This will make "YouTube AdFree" display as an eligible input application (next to HDMI/Live TV, etc...), and, if it was the last selected input, it will be automatically launched when turning on the TV.

This will also greatly increase startup performance, since it will be runnning constantly in the background, at the cost of increased idle memory usage. (so far, relatively unnoticable in normal usage)

In order to disable autostart run this:

luna-send -n 1 'luna://com.webos.service.eim/deleteDevice' '{"appId":"youtube.leanback.v4"}'

Patching your IPK

Patching the Youtube IPK for your TV requires that the IPK was built as 2 binaries: cobalt and libcobalt.so.

cobalt is handling the grahical part with the TV and libcobalt.so is handling the browser rendering and javascript engine.

Cobalt is an open-source and it is possible to rebuild libcobalt.so and therefore inject adblock.css and adblock.js after the loading the Youtube webpage.

Instruction to patch your IPK

• Install docker:

Follow instructions on https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/

Make sure to install all docker components like docker-buildx-plugin and docker-compose-plugin.

• Install tools

sudo apt install jq git patch sed binutils squashfs-tools rename findutils xz-utils

• Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/GuillaumeSmaha/youtube-webos-cobalt.git

• Enter the folder and you can patch your YouTube ipk

cd youtube-webos-cobalt

make PACKAGE=./your-tv-youtube.ipk

Customize package name: PACKAGE_NAME can be defined to change the package name

make PACKAGE=./your-tv-youtube.ipk PACKAGE_NAME=youtube-free.leanback.v4

Build Cobalt

If you need to update Cobalt patches or if you don't trusted pre-compiled version stored in cobalt-bin, you can build them yourself.

The building process is:

• Clone cobalt repository
• Apply the patch defined in cobalt-patches directory to inject AdBlock javascript after the document is loaded.
• Build libcobalt.so using docker-compose method.

This process is handled by the following commands:

• Clone the repo, enter the folder and call the build command, this will generate libcobalt.so file for the given versions. make cobalt-bin/<COBALT_VERSION>-<SB_API_VERSION>/libcobalt.so cobalt-bin/<COBALT_VERSION>-<SB_API_VERSION>.xz

For example: for Cobalt 23.lts.4 and SB Api version 12:

git clone https://github.com/GuillaumeSmaha/youtube-webos-cobalt.git

cd youtube-webos-cobalt

make cobalt-bin/23.lts.4-12/libcobalt.so cobalt-bin/23.lts.4-12.xz

Then, you can call make PACKAGE=./your-tv-youtube.ipk to rebuild an IPK with your updated version of Cobalt

Building issue

If you already built cobalt for a different version and got an error like node-gyp not found:

Try to clean docker image used to build and retry.

docker image rm cobalt-build-evergreen cobalt-build-linux cobalt-build-base cobalt-base

Try to clean old Cobalt builds and retry:

rm -fr cobalt/out/
make cobalt-clean

Build Youtube-Webos

If you need to update Youtube-webos or if you don't trusted pre-generated version stored in youtube-webos/output, you can build them yourself.

git clone https://github.com/GuillaumeSmaha/youtube-webos-cobalt.git

cd youtube-webos-cobalt

make npm-docker

After calling make npm-docker, files in youtube-webos/output will be updated. Then, you can call make PACKAGE=./your-tv-youtube.ipk to rebuild an IPK with your updated version of Youtube-webos

Development TV setup

Configuring webOS TV CLI tools with Developer Mode App

This is partially based on: https://webostv.developer.lge.com/develop/app-test/using-devmode-app/

• Install Developer Mode app from Content Store
• Enable developer mode, enable keyserver
• Download TV's private key: http://TV_IP:9991/webos_rsa
• Configure the device using ares-setup-device (-a may need to be replaced with -m if device named webos is already configured)
  • PASSPHRASE is the 6-character passphrase printed on screen in developer mode app

ares-setup-device -a webos -i "username=prisoner" -i "privatekey=/path/to/downloaded/webos_rsa" -i "passphrase=PASSPHRASE" -i "host=TV_IP" -i "port=9922"

Configuring webOS TV CLI tools with Homebrew Channel / root

• Enable sshd in Homebrew Channel app
• Generate ssh key on developer machine (ssh-keygen)
• Copy the public key (id_rsa.pub) to /home/root/.ssh/authorized_keys on TV
• Configure the device using ares-setup-device (-a may need to be replaced with -m if device named webos is already configured)

ares-setup-device -a webos -i "username=root" -i "privatekey=/path/to/id_rsa" -i "passphrase=SSH_KEY_PASSPHRASE" -i "host=TV_IP" -i "port=22"

Installation

cd youtube-webos
npm run deploy

Launching

• The app will be available in the TV's app list or launch it using ares-cli.

cd youtube-webos
npm run launch

To jump immediately into some specific video use:

cd youtube-webos
npm run launch -- -p '{"contentTarget":"v=F8PGWLvn1mQ"}'