Breaking change in electron-updater 4.3.10

[davej]

• Version: 4.3.10

• Electron Version: Effects Electron 11 and before. Does not effect Electron 12 or later.

• Target: All

Electron-updater has introduced fs/promises which will break the build on Electron 11 and earlier. This is because fs/promises is not supported in Node 12 (which is used by Electron 11). The change was introduced in this PR: #5890

This is a critical issue for anybody on Electron 11 or earlier because it will break their application after an update and it is not possible to recover by pushing a fix in an update.

The best mitigation that I think of here is to publish a 4.3.11 that does not use fs/promises. If you want to use fs/promises then you can publish 5.0.0 that uses fs/promises.

[shownoso]

I got the same problem

[tub5]

This has halted all development on our apps

[theolivenbaum]

Same here

[sFireFrog]

。。。I solved this problem by specifying the version in package.json

[tub5]

。。。I solved this problem by specifying the version in package.json

That would be a temporary fix.
However, we're using the Electron.NET package which uses a CLI to build our apps. Therefore we can't just change it.
With a breaking change such as this, it shouldn't have been placed as a minor version.

[sFireFrog]

。。。I solved this problem by specifying the version in package.json

That would be a temporary fix.
However, we're using the Electron.NET package which uses a CLI to build our apps. Therefore we can't just change it.
With a breaking change such as this, it shouldn't have been placed as a minor version.

Yes, I also use Electron.NET, this problem has troubled me for a long time, I directly modified the CLI

[tub5]

。。。I solved this problem by specifying the version in package.json

That would be a temporary fix.
However, we're using the Electron.NET package which uses a CLI to build our apps. Therefore we can't just change it.
With a breaking change such as this, it shouldn't have been placed as a minor version.

Yes, I also use Electron.NET, this problem has troubled me for a long time, I directly modified the CLI

Nice. I have put a PR in to upgrade us to Electron 12.0.12 and Tweeted Gregor. No PR's since Jan makes for a sad dev team.

[davej]

I solved this problem by specifying the version in package.json

Most electron builder users won't be aware of this issue before they publish a new release of their app. For this reason, it's best to fix this in a patch release.

[ekuchynski]

Also got this surprise today. Built and deployed updates refused to start on many user machines.. :( Please help. We use Electron .NET as well.

[theolivenbaum]

@davej: I'm publishing a temp nuget package with the fixes your PR (and including also the fix for the splashscreen that has been long pending). It's based on my fork here: https://github.com/theolivenbaum/Electron.NET

If you want to use it, you'll need to:

• change the NuGet package: https://www.nuget.org/packages/h5.ElectronNET.API/
• uninstall the electronize CLI and install this version instead: https://www.nuget.org/packages/h5.ElectronNET.CLI/
• change any calls to the CLI from electronize to electronize-h5

As this is now using Electron12, you also need to add this to your CreateWindow calls:

Electron.WindowManager.CreateWindowAsync(new BrowserWindowOptions
{
   // ...
    WebPreferences = new WebPreferences()
    {
        NodeIntegration = true,
        ContextIsolation = false
    },
   // ...

We're using this one till it's fixed upstream, and testing if everything still works. If you want to use it for now and hit anything, drop me an email to rafael (at) curiosity (dot) ai

[skelt]

we need to use nodejs 12 for windows server 2003. is there a solution that works with nodejs12?

[davej]

@develar @mmaietta I usually don't like to tag core devs but I think this is particularly nasty given that there isn't a way to recover once a problematic version has been shipped (apart from emailing affected end-users to download again).

[develar]

4.3.9 is marked as latest again for now.

4.3.10 was marked as a next for a two months.

[mankeheaven]

hello, which version can I rollback to differential download?
link #5948
Is there anyway to differential download lower than 4.3.9, other than fork this resp?

[skelt]

electronize build works using nodejs14 and with 4.3.9 set to the latest we're up and running again on win server 2003

[tub5]

@davej: I'm publishing a temp nuget package with the fixes your PR (and including also the fix for the splashscreen that has been long pending). It's based on my fork here: https://github.com/theolivenbaum/Electron.NET

If you want to use it, you'll need to:

• change the NuGet package: https://www.nuget.org/packages/h5.ElectronNET.API/
• uninstall the electronize CLI and install this version instead: https://www.nuget.org/packages/h5.ElectronNET.CLI/
• change any calls to the CLI from electronize to electronize-h5

As this is now using Electron12, you also need to add this to your CreateWindow calls:

Electron.WindowManager.CreateWindowAsync(new BrowserWindowOptions
{
   // ...
    WebPreferences = new WebPreferences()
    {
        NodeIntegration = true,
        ContextIsolation = false
    },
   // ...

We're using this one till it's fixed upstream, and testing if everything still works. If you want to use it for now and hit anything, drop me an email to rafael (at) curiosity (dot) ai

Cheers for that.
Gregor is reviewing the PR's Thursday evening so hopefully we'll have an update shortly after.

[Mgonand]

For a quick workaround, you can patch (using patch-package npm if you want to persist through commits) the AppUpdater.js file (located in node_modules/electron-updater/out/AppUpdater.js):

diff --git a/node_modules/electron-updater/out/AppUpdater.js b/node_modules/electron-updater/out/AppUpdater.js
index 42ed9a3..469fa39 100644
--- a/node_modules/electron-updater/out/AppUpdater.js
+++ b/node_modules/electron-updater/out/AppUpdater.js
@@ -5,7 +5,6 @@ const builder_util_runtime_1 = require("builder-util-runtime");
 const crypto_1 = require("crypto");
 const events_1 = require("events");
 const fs_extra_1 = require("fs-extra");
-const promises_1 = require("fs/promises");
 const js_yaml_1 = require("js-yaml");
 const lazy_val_1 = require("lazy-val");
 const path = require("path");
@@ -377,7 +376,7 @@ class AppUpdater extends events_1.EventEmitter {
         if (this._appUpdateConfigPath == null) {
             this._appUpdateConfigPath = this.app.appUpdateConfigPath;
         }
-        return js_yaml_1.load(await promises_1.readFile(this._appUpdateConfigPath, "utf-8"));
+        return js_yaml_1.load(await fs_extra_1.readFile(this._appUpdateConfigPath, "utf-8"));
     }
     computeRequestHeaders(provider) {
         const fileExtraDownloadHeaders = provider.fileExtraDownloadHeaders;
@@ -395,7 +394,7 @@ class AppUpdater extends events_1.EventEmitter {
     async getOrCreateStagingUserId() {
         const file = path.join(this.app.userDataPath, ".updaterId");
         try {
-            const id = await promises_1.readFile(file, "utf-8");
+            const id = await fs_extra_1.readFile(file, "utf-8");
             if (builder_util_runtime_1.UUID.check(id)) {
                 return id;
             }
@@ -477,7 +476,7 @@ class AppUpdater extends events_1.EventEmitter {
         }
         const downloadedUpdateHelper = await this.getOrCreateDownloadHelper();
         const cacheDir = downloadedUpdateHelper.cacheDirForPendingUpdate;
-        await promises_1.mkdir(cacheDir, { recursive: true });
+        await fs_extra_1.mkdir(cacheDir, { recursive: true });
         const updateFileName = getCacheUpdateFileName();
         let updateFile = path.join(cacheDir, updateFileName);
         const packageFile = packageInfo == null ? null : path.join(cacheDir, `package-${version}${path.extname(packageInfo.path) || ".7z"}`);
@@ -499,14 +498,14 @@ class AppUpdater extends events_1.EventEmitter {
             await downloadedUpdateHelper.clear().catch(() => {
                 // ignore
             });
-            return await promises_1.unlink(updateFile).catch(() => {
+            return await fs_extra_1.unlink(updateFile).catch(() => {
                 // ignore
             });
         };
         const tempUpdateFile = await DownloadedUpdateHelper_1.createTempUpdateFile(`temp-${updateFileName}`, cacheDir, log);
         try {
             await taskOptions.task(tempUpdateFile, downloadOptions, packageFile, removeFileIfAny);
-            await promises_1.rename(tempUpdateFile, updateFile);
+            await fs_extra_1.rename(tempUpdateFile, updateFile);
         }
         catch (e) {
             await removeFileIfAny();

This worked for me. Hope it helps.

[davej]

Thanks, @Mgonand. You can probably also just do a 1-line diff.

-const promises_1 = require("fs/promises");
+const promises_1 = require("fs").promises;

[Mgonand]

You're right, that's better. I did the patch quick and didn't realize it. Thanks.

[axetroy]

fs/promises are great, but it breaking up electron version locking.

we need to upgrade the old version to electrion@^13

[stale]

Is this still relevant? If so, what is blocking it? Is there anything you can do to help move it forward?

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs.

[toschlog]

Yes, I think this issue is still relevant.

I'm using electron-updater 4.3.9. Differential downloads don't work. Apparently they're fixed in 4.3.10, but that version won't work in Electron 10, which I have to use.

I'm going to try the patch-package thing but it would be good to release a 4.3.11 that fixes the breaking change in 4.3.10.

[mmaietta]

If I'm understanding this correctly, it seems we need to support node 14 (electron 12) and node 12 (electron 10). I wonder if we could use something like this for importing? Not at my dev machine to check

let fsPromises
try {
   fsPromises = require('fs/promises')
} catch (e} {
   fsPromises = require('fs').promises
}

[toschlog]

@mmaietta I ran your try/catch code and it worked fine. Seems a good solution.

[mmaietta]

I noticed that fs-extra is already being used and the API's overlap, can someone try replacing this one import line to just swap in fs-extra like so?

const fs_extra_1 = require("fs-extra");
const promises_1 = fs_extra_1;

I'm working on getting this issue resolved so that you all are able to update your electron-updater to the newest alpha v5.

[mmaietta]

Migrated commands to use fs-extra and released this in electron-updater@5.0.0-alpha.3 (note: alpha)