Fully Automatic Factory Service Manual (FSM) Downloading

NaterGator · 12-29-06, 09:44 PM

SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

Update here 1/30/08 (click)

The new TIS site has changed the way alot of stuff works, and it may be a while/if ever when I get to fixing it.

Glad so many people were able to solve stuff because of this; I'll look into the feasibility of continuing this in the future.

Or.... the easy way out!

A word of warning first

You are fully responsible for complying with all of Toyota's copyright stipulations. It is your responsibility to read and fully understand Toyota's legal notices. You are fully responsible for what you do with the FSMs.

Here is a short list of things you cannot do: do not download FSMs for anyone other than yourself, do not make copies available to anyone after you download them, do not sell your copies of the FSM to anyone (digital or paper), do not distribute anything you download as a result of this thread on any filesharing system. DO: pay for a subscription for yourself, use these documents with responsibility, and comply with all legal stipulations laid out by Toyota.

I do not mean to scare anyone with this, I just want to make it clear that what you do with the information contained in this thread is your responsibility and you need to ensure that you are being careful. If I ever see any copies of any Toyota document circulating that appear to have come from the process described in this thread I will immediately destroy everything associated with it and I make no promises of bringing it back. Keep it legal and keep it fair and we won't have a problem.

And Finally: Flattering though it may be, please do not ask for the source code to the script. It does make page requests as unique "searches" for each combination of category/subcategory, and if everyone began running their own image of the script to acquire duplicate packages, Toyota could quickly be swamped with unnecessary traffic. Out of respect for Toyota's servers and the desire to keep everything (except for the source... ironic?) available to everyone I will hold on to the source. This shouldn't be a problem since I generally am quick to generate requested packages and have no issues with doing so... so please, leave that part up to me. Thanks!

NaterGator · 12-29-06, 09:45 PM

Part 2: Introduction and Instructions

The concept is pretty simple. Toyota provides access to their documentation via a subscription service which provides a searchable interface to access information for specific vehicles. Unfortunately they do not provide a streamlined way to gather the information; users can save many hundreds of individual files and create their own structure, but we wanted a more automated method. Toyota's search system provides some insightful structure to the files, so I parsed out their search categories (and subcategories) and used them as a directory structure without renaming the files. Without getting technical, this allows me to create small zip files which contain the necessary programs and data to download all of the documents. The system is hands off... I set the vehicle(s) and document(s) and everything is automatic. For the end user, all you do is supply your subscription information (via a cookie Toyota issues your browser) and run a file, and all of the potentially hundreds of documents are downloaded and categorized for you. It is as logical and simple as I can generate without any human intervention.

So, without any further delay, here is everything you need to know to get your PDFs.

First and foremost, if you don't have Firefox, you need it. You need it for this system, and it's a nice alternative to Internet Explorer. You can find step-by-step instructions for obtaining and installing Firefox here:
http://opensourcearticles.com/articl...ion_to_firefox

Once you have Firefox installed here is what you need to do...

First, visit https://techinfo.toyota.com/indexhttps.html and purchase a TIS subscription. You can purchase them for 24 hours, a month, or a year. For most people 24 hours is more than enough, and costs only $10.

After you have purchased your TIS subscription, you need to download and unzip the "packages" you want. I use WinZip, but there are many archiving options out there including the built-in Windows Compressed Folders shell.

I'll assume you are using WinZip since it is simple and straightforward. If you are not, I leave it to you to find out how to unzip the package.
When you open it, click Extract:

Then, pick a location. For example, I like to keep my Lexus Documents in a main folder, then break them down by year, so I chose D:\LexRepair\1996\ This means that when I am all done (with the whole process) my FSM will be in D:\LexRepair\1996\1996 Lexus LX450 Repair Manual\ and so on... once you have your location, hit extract:

Now, open up http://techinfo.toyota.com in FIREFOX!
Once you are logged in, click on Tools -> Options:

Then click on "show cookies":

Then, follow these three steps exactly!
Step 1: type toyota.com where it says search
Step 2: click the cookie it finds. It must find this cookie. If not, post here because you have a problem.
Step 3: click where the big cryptic text is and hit Control+A to select all the text, then Control+C to copy all the text.

Now that you have copied your cookie contents, you need to paste them into the cookies.txt file. Navigate to the Downloader folder (you just unzipped it) in my case note it was in D:\LexRepair\1996\1996 Lexus LX450 Repair Manual\Downloader. Once there, find and open cookies.txt:

Select the text EXACTLY like you see it below. You need to include the all asterisks but NOT the tab before them...:

Now that you have selected the text, hit Control+V to paste the new cookie onto it, then Control+S to save cookies.txt:

You can now close the cookies.txt file and double click "begin_download.bat" to start the process.

Once you are done, your folder should look like it does below with all the PDFs in their respective folders:

If so, congrats, you are done! If not, you need to post back here because I insufficiently explained something and it didn't work

Also of note, if you are downloading a couple of different documents (different zip file packages), you can copy your cookies.txt file from the "\Downloader" folder of a successfully finished package into one of the each new "\Downloader" folder and just double click begin_download to start each new one. Each package requires its own "\Downloader" folder because obviously each document's list of links are different.

Below you will find a list of all the documents that are available to date.

NaterGator · 12-29-06, 09:45 PM

Part 3: "The List"

)

-----Nate

thekirk · 12-29-06, 10:08 PM

Nate, would it be asking too much to get all the manuals for a 1990 Truck, and a 1993 4Runner? I've already bought the hard copies on these beasts, and I'd just like to have it digital to work with for projects on the vehicles. I'd also like to get the body repair manual Toyota used to have for the 1993 4Runner. I don't know if it's on the Techinfo site, or not, but the hard copy is out of print.

Thanks!

NaterGator · 12-29-06, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thekirk

Nate, would it be asking too much to get all the manuals for a 1990 Truck, and a 1993 4Runner? I've already bought the hard copies on these beasts, and I'd just like to have it digital to work with for projects on the vehicles. I'd also like to get the body repair manual Toyota used to have for the 1993 4Runner. I don't know if it's on the Techinfo site, or not, but the hard copy is out of print.

Thanks!

Definitely not!

Unnnnfortunately I'm in Atlanta and flashed the firmware on my router at home and forgot to re-tunnel my remote desktop port so I can't make the packages until I get home on Jan 1st.

Romer · 12-29-06, 10:30 PM

Excellent Nate. I just changed the FAQ link to this thread. How about a 99 4runner and an 06 4runner?

NaterGator · 12-29-06, 10:37 PM

Absolutely Ken, I'll run all backlogged requests when I walk in the door on the 1st!

For anyone else with a specific request: if I don't reply to you and give you "yes" it's because I'm in my LX stuck in traffic in Atlanta (oh joy!) but I make the same promise that I'll do them in the order they are recieved and it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes when I get home.

Sorry to anyone that may have purchased a subscription that expires before I get them done, I guess thats a good old "foot in mouth" for me after the speedy turnaround time comment above

ff347 · 12-30-06, 02:52 AM

Thanks for making the process so easy!

I have some repair work to do on my car, could you please set up a 1995 Camry?

Scott

verruckt1 · 12-30-06, 03:55 AM

Hello Mr. Gator - Any chance that you could post the packets for the following as well:

2006 Rav 4 (wifes commuter car)
2001 Sequoia (my commuter car)

The Cruiser is the project that resides in my garage....... Sure do appreciate all of your help making our lives easier

Rgds,
Pete
Lucas, TX

peepers · 12-30-06, 07:29 AM

amazing. thank you. i will gladly abide by the rules. i do have the book already but this is nice and handy!

DTAYLOR · 12-30-06, 07:32 AM

Nate, you are the man!

MikePL · 12-30-06, 12:52 PM

We love you
!!!

Hants · 12-30-06, 02:47 PM

Way cool, Nate!

Works like a champ... with broadband, downloading the manuals took < 20 minutes!

Next I'll be going into Acrobat and seeing if I can figure out how to get them all joined together (by Manual).

Thanks for doing the legwork on the automation... and much credit to your predecessors who figured out the cookies and other tidbits that went into it!

NaterGator · 12-30-06, 02:59 PM

Another day in Atlanta down, another day closer to getting the new packages generated for you guys.

Hold tight, they are coming...

-----Nate

p8nt · 12-30-06, 08:14 PM

Somebody get this man Nobel Prize!

Unbelivebly helpfull! Thank you so much!

thekirk · 12-30-06, 08:45 PM

Thanks, Nate!

little_joe · 01-01-07, 09:58 AM

Edit: please disregard. After spending 25 mins modifying things to run on Linux, I just ran this on my Windows machine and finished in 15 mins.

Many thanks Nate, this is toyotally awesome!

Beowulf · 01-01-07, 11:54 AM

Joe,
The original automated TIS download process using WGet was developed by ComputerBookStore and was originally developed using Linux. (See the original thread) Others tested it on WinXP. Nate took it to the next level because the CBS procedure was not easy for the novice computer user.

Why do you state that you cannot "see the script source"? The batch file that Nate includes is written for Windows boxes but you could do a generic shell script that does the same thing and give that to Nate so he can include it in the ZIP file. You should be able to view the Begin-Download.bat file in each of the above ZIP files and migrating it to Linux would be trivial.

I will also add that the "magic" that Nate has accomplished is NOT in the batch file or anything that you guys can see above. The really neat part of what he developed was the ability to automatically access the TIS site and extract the above URL.TXT files. That is the significant accomplishment that takes this process to the next level and makes it deserving of being in the FAQ and having a dedicated thread.

Nice work Nate!

-B-

peepers · 01-01-07, 12:04 PM

they didnt all download as pdfs for me. for example, if i go into the brake folder, i see this file - logoutredir2.html.

little_joe · 01-01-07, 12:18 PM

Beowulf, thanks for the clarification. I started editing the download scripts and setting things up then realized I could have just been done with the whole process in Windows. I'm not superfast when doing all of these things in Linux.

If people are interested, I'll finish up what I started and make it available for Linux users.