Packager confusion

[mnichols]

I've tried walking through every comment in this thread but can't seem to quite get packaging with this lib to work:
To be clear, I am trying to use a 'two package.json' approach (similar to electron-builder) because of the weight of combining the two.

So given this dir structure:

- root/
   - package.json
   - src/
      - package.json
      - index.js
      - main/
         - index.js
      - render/
         - index.js
         - index.html

my npm script in root package.json is:

# Note that I am calling packager on the 'src' dir since I read calling it 'app' causes problems
"app:Darwin": "electron-packager-compile ./src --version=1.2.5 --platform=darwin --arch=all --asar --overwrite --out=build"

When run $> open ./build/agent-ui-app-darwin-x64/agent-ui-app.app

I get this error:

Uncaught Exception:
Error: Asked for /Users/mnichols/dev/pqls/apps/ui/build/agent-ui-app-darwin-x64/agent-ui-app.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/index.js but it was not precompiled!
    at FileChangedCache.getHashForPathSync (/Users/mnichols/dev/pqls/apps/ui/build/agent-ui-app-darwin-x64/agent-ui-app.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/node_modules/electron-compile/lib/file-change-cache.js:356:17)
    at CompilerHost.compileReadOnlySync (/Users/mnichols/dev/pqls/apps/ui/build/agent-ui-app-darwin-x64/agent-ui-app.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/node_modules/electron-compile/lib/compiler-host.js:687:43)
    at CompilerHost.compileSync (/Users/mnichols/dev/pqls/apps/ui/build/agent-ui-app-darwin-x64/agent-ui-app.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/node_modules/electron-compile/lib/compiler-host.js:644:39)
    at Object.require.extensions.(anonymous function) [as .js] (/Users/mnichols/dev/pqls/apps/ui/build/agent-ui-app-darwin-x64/agent-ui-app.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/node_modules/electron-compile/lib/require-hook.js:32:48)
    at Module.load (module.js:456:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:415:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:407:3)
    at Module.require (module.js:466:17)
    at Object.init (/Users/mnichols/dev/pqls/apps/ui/build/agent-ui-app-darwin-x64/agent-ui-app.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/node_modules/electron-compile/lib/config-parser.js:372:16)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/mnichols/dev/pqls/apps/ui/build/agent-ui-app-darwin-x64/agent-ui-app.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/es6-shim.js:8:17)

UPDATE
Note that when package without asar and manually include the .cache inside the .app directory it works just fine!

Do I need to manually run electron-compile to get a .cache dir somewhere to be included in the resulting app.asar? My understanding this was already done under the hood but I can't make sense of it.

Any pointers?

[mnichols]

More details...this exact workflow works from npm scripts:

"app:Darwin": "npm run clean && electron-packager-compile ./src --version=1.2.5 --platform=darwin --arch=all --overwrite --out=build",
"compilecache": "electron-compile --appdir=./src ./src",
"copycache": "cp -r ./src/.cache build/agent-ui-darwin-x64/agent-ui.app/Contents/Resources/app/",
"postapp:Darwin": "npm run compilecache && npm run copycache"

NOTE this isnt using asar archiving but it does result in a working app using electron-compile with a two-package.json setup.

When I include the .cache in the ./src dir before running electron-packager-compile the cache is included but somehow I get 'isnt precompiled' errors. But if I manually include the cache after the packaging is done it works.

[anaisbetts]

Hm, I wonder if we're not copying over the entire cache somehow :-/

[mnichols]

@paulcbetts That is precisely the issue! I just ran the two commands to compare:
with asar
electron-packager-compile ./src --version=1.2.5 --platform=darwin --arch=all --asar --overwrite --out=build
compile only
electron-compile --appdir=./src ./src

When I asar extract the result of the first command and compare the contents of the .cache dir, I am missing one file compared to the result of electron-compile.

~/dev/pqls/apps/ui$ ls -a src/.cache/
.                       7f5749a966c21214c1a1dab36fb6fcb4536dac86    a6ff080d72ec4d56a33acd957959590114fb1fef
..                      8bdca42c68ad8750be336de3aeafae9314c31e5e    compiler-info.json.gz
~/dev/pqls/apps/ui$ ls -a ~/temp/pqlsapp/.cache
.                       7f5749a966c21214c1a1dab36fb6fcb4536dac86    compiler-info.json.gz
..                      a6ff080d72ec4d56a33acd957959590114fb1fef

[mnichols]

After some more poking at the cause of this, it looks like it is always the main file (from package.json) which is excluded. All other files are included in the .cache which is used in the app.asar.

[anaisbetts]

Yep, I think I know what this is. I'll fix this today or tomorrow. Thanks @mnichols for the solid write-up!

[mnichols]

Thanks..I tried to creep through the code but had a hard time figuring out
why it happend. I see the compiler run on the file but the cacheEntry
collection doesnt seem to receive the hash mapping for it. I ran out of
time tracking it but it is really well done. Nice work, mate.

On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 11:43 AM, Paul Betts [email protected]
wrote:

Yep, I think I know what this is. I'll fix this today or tomorrow. Thanks
@mnichols https://github.com/mnichols for the solid write-up!

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[anaisbetts]

This is fixed in 3.3.5, thanks all for helping track this down

[mnichols]

Hi @paulcbetts , I'm afraid this isn't fixed.
To illustrate I created a repo that has both a working simple application using electron-compile and a broken application. The problem comes down to the packaging choking when there are subdirectories, regardless of whether the files are used or not.

• The master branch works, even with asar (the non-broken version).
• The subdirs branch doesnt work because the top-level 'index.js' isnt getting put into the cache. The only different between the two branches is the inclusion of a subdirectory nocollision in the src directory. Note that the files in there are not imported at all. They are simply in the tree.

I included a README there that illustrates how to run the app and package+run it.

[mnichols]

@paulcbetts more investigating...it turns out even if I do a flat file structure (single package.json), having subdirectories cause failure.
I looked at the contents of the resulting package when there isnt a subdirectory and it turns out that a .cache is only created when there is a subdirectory in the target directory being packaged. If that subdir is removed, then a .cache isnt included at all...almost like it skips doing caching altogether if there arent subs. That's why it is 'working' without subdirectories.
The .cache is still failing because the very first file which is the 'main' script configured in the package.json isnt included in its cache collection. It doesnt matter what the name is.

[SCLeoX]

@mnichols Do you have electron-compile installed in the src folder?

[mnichols]

I did, yes.

On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 3:55 PM, SCLeo [email protected] wrote:

@mnichols https://github.com/mnichols Do you have electron-compile
installed in the src folder?

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[SCLeoX]

@mnichols Nice, so we ran into exactly same problem XD

[mnichols]

Yeh I had to abandon using this lib due to .cache oddities unfortunately.
It's got great potential but I ran out of time trying to debug the issue.
I'm hoping to pick it back up later.

On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 3:59 PM, SCLeo [email protected] wrote:

@mnichols https://github.com/mnichols Nice, so we ran into exactly same
problem XD

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[SCLeoX]

The only difference between us is that I still get "it was not precompiled!" errors even though I drag it to resources folder manually. XD
I just spent like 5 hours on this thing. It is 7am here and I think I am gonna give up and switch to gulp or grunt. ._.

[malept]

electron-packager-compile has been removed from this project due to its unreliability (see: most of the issues marked electron-packager in this issue tracker). It's now recommended to use the Electron Forge project, because it uses both electron-compile and Electron Packager (among other community projects) to create distributable Electron apps.

If the .cache bug still occurs with Electron Forge, please let us know.