[Note: I have an FSM update forthcoming which will cover all the way through the 2021 model year. A few others on the forum are downloading and testing to help me make sure it works as expected and isn't missing any docs. For those just looking for the FSM .ISO file, I hope to publish info on that perhaps as early as this weekend. Watch the "FSM for 200 series" thread for updates. This post is not about that release, and if you ask for a link to the FSM download here I'm going to make fun of you and then promptly ignore the request]
Over the years of building a downloadable FSM, adding 40, 60, 80, and 100-series docs as well as non-US info upon request, I've built up a fairly large collection of scripts that I'd use to mirror them. As those of you have talked with me about the FSM know, the TIS site uses all sorts of javascript code to assemble and generate the website, so it's not just as simple as using a basic website downloader/spider tool. So as part of my most recent effort I decided to clean up, debug and fix, and then publish all the tools I've written and make them freely available for anyone who wants to use them.
Why would you do this? (And why would I use these?)
A few reasons:
What does the FSM include?
Using the tools will allow you to mirror the TIS site and will download the Repair Manual, Electrical Wiring Diagrams, Body Repair/Collision Repair Manual, New Car Features. It will also create searchable and printable PDF files for each section of each manual. (Note however that some of the manuals can be upwards of 10,000 pages, so it's probably impractical to print the whole thing - however you can save the PDFs to your tablet or phone and search them if you break down on a trail or somewhere in which you don't have internet access).
So how do I DIY my own FSM?
This is the more technical part of the post.
Information on how to set up your environment (directories and configuration file) is at tis-clone/HOWTO.md at main · rootflags/tis-clone - https://github.com/rootflags/tis-clone/blob/main/HOWTO.md
Once you have your Linux (or whatever) image set up, you can download the latest release from:
github.com
Or if you're feeling brave, you can download the latest version of the code directly by running 'git clone GitHub - rootflags/tis-clone: Download a copy of the Toyota/Lexus/Scion electronic factory service manual - https://github.com/rootflags/tis-clone.git'. That is guaranteed to get you all the latest bug fixes, as well as all the latest newly introduced bugs
The rest of the steps are covered in the HOWTO file linked above, but for posterity the steps are basically:
If you've having trouble getting this to work, post your issue with lots of details, screenshots, etc of precisely what you're seeing here.
If you've found a bug, file it at Issues · rootflags/tis-clone - https://github.com/rootflags/tis-clone/issues.
Final thoughts
Over the years of building a downloadable FSM, adding 40, 60, 80, and 100-series docs as well as non-US info upon request, I've built up a fairly large collection of scripts that I'd use to mirror them. As those of you have talked with me about the FSM know, the TIS site uses all sorts of javascript code to assemble and generate the website, so it's not just as simple as using a basic website downloader/spider tool. So as part of my most recent effort I decided to clean up, debug and fix, and then publish all the tools I've written and make them freely available for anyone who wants to use them.
Why would you do this? (And why would I use these?)
A few reasons:
- Over the years I've had various people request FSMs for different vehicles (GX460, 4Runner, Supra, etc). I don't have the time (or desire) to create these, but if they're important to you that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to
- I've done this a few times now, and given the 200-series is done production I feel like this is a great time for me to call the existing LC/LX FSM complete. Which is a fancy way of saying "I'm done maintaining/updating this". When the LX600 (300-series) comes out, I'm probably not going to update the existing FSM (unless I end up with one down the road), but that doesn't mean someone else can't take the baton.
- My FSM is huge, about 46GB now. If you only have one or two vehicles you could likely shrink that down to 1 or 2GB. Using these scripts you can customize what you want to build into your FSM
- Providing the FSM has been an ethical dilemma for me. I wish Toyota would just outright sell a downloadable or printable copy. I've done it up until now because many of us home mechanics were trying to troubleshoot problems or do our own wrenching and needed the data, and the TIS website is not always convenient. But it's also meant people were getting the data for free. So with these tools if you want an FSM for your model, you can purchase a $20 TIS 2-day subscription and then use the scripts to archive your own copy.
What does the FSM include?
Using the tools will allow you to mirror the TIS site and will download the Repair Manual, Electrical Wiring Diagrams, Body Repair/Collision Repair Manual, New Car Features. It will also create searchable and printable PDF files for each section of each manual. (Note however that some of the manuals can be upwards of 10,000 pages, so it's probably impractical to print the whole thing - however you can save the PDFs to your tablet or phone and search them if you break down on a trail or somewhere in which you don't have internet access).
So how do I DIY my own FSM?
This is the more technical part of the post.
- I've tested the tools on Ubuntu Linux 20.04. They should work on pretty much any recent Linux version with little to no changes. They may work on MacOS X as well as on Windows with the right software installed (Cygwin, for example), however I haven't tried. If someone wants to send me a Macbook I'm more than happy to make them work. (I'm not going to attempt Windows, but feel free to discuss it in this thread). If you want to set up a Linux server for this, I recommend installing VMware Fusion on your desktop, or spend a few $ and create a virtual machine running Linux in AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, etc.
- You'll need to be comfortable working in a command line. There are a bunch of scripts you need to run and I'm not even going to attempt to make some sort of GUI tool to use them.
- There are a few tools you'll need to make sure are installed on your system (Ghostscript, wkhtmltopdf, wget, and Perl in particular)
Information on how to set up your environment (directories and configuration file) is at tis-clone/HOWTO.md at main · rootflags/tis-clone - https://github.com/rootflags/tis-clone/blob/main/HOWTO.md
Once you have your Linux (or whatever) image set up, you can download the latest release from:
Releases · rootflags/tis-clone
Download a copy of the Toyota/Lexus/Scion electronic factory service manual - rootflags/tis-clone
github.com
Or if you're feeling brave, you can download the latest version of the code directly by running 'git clone GitHub - rootflags/tis-clone: Download a copy of the Toyota/Lexus/Scion electronic factory service manual - https://github.com/rootflags/tis-clone.git'. That is guaranteed to get you all the latest bug fixes, as well as all the latest newly introduced bugs
The rest of the steps are covered in the HOWTO file linked above, but for posterity the steps are basically:
- Once you've downloaded the code, move the folder to /tis-clone, copy the tis-clone.cfg file to /etc, and then edit the /etc/tis-clone.cfg and make sure all the folder locations match your setup.
- Get a TIS account at https://techinfo.toyota.com, log into it in your web browser on your desktop, then view your cookies and edit /tis-clone/cookies.txt to match. Note: you have to keep your web browser open while you're using the tools, and you'll need to occasionally refresh the web browser window every few hours by clicking a link somewhere inside it just to keep your session active.
- Search TIS for your model year. There will be a (typically) 7-character code that is part of the URL for each manual section. You'll need the last 5 characters.
- Go to the working (download) folder and run all of the "dl-*" scripts which will download files for you. Typically you run them like "/tis-clone/scripts/dl-html-rm.sh 27J0U"
- Run the 'dl-framework' script to build out a usable local website
- Run the 'tis-urlstripper' script to remove any links that point back to the TIS website, otherwise some of your pages will have broken links and images
- If you want to create PDF files (optional), run the 'tis-mkpdfs.sh' script
- Run the build-index (and optionally build-pdfidx) scripts to create website menus
- Run the 'make-iso' script if you want to create your own personal ISO.
- If you're going to create an ISO or download everything to your desktop computer, follow the instructions to set up the Abyss web server at tis-clone/ABYSS.md at main · rootflags/tis-clone - https://github.com/rootflags/tis-clone/blob/main/ABYSS.md.
- If you're going to keep your Linux server running you can set up Abyss as described above (though the installation instructions will likely be different) or you can set up Apache.
If you've having trouble getting this to work, post your issue with lots of details, screenshots, etc of precisely what you're seeing here.
If you've found a bug, file it at Issues · rootflags/tis-clone - https://github.com/rootflags/tis-clone/issues.
Final thoughts
