[Bug]: ipcRenderer seems broken

[zhanghaobin]

Preflight Checklist

• I have read the Contributing Guidelines for this project.
• I agree to follow the Code of Conduct that this project adheres to.
• I have searched the issue tracker for a bug report that matches the one I want to file, without success.

Electron Version

12.0.6

What operating system are you using?

macOS

Operating System Version

macOS Monterey 12.6

What arch are you using?

x64

Last Known Working Electron version

No response

Expected Behavior

ipcRenderer should work properly, including ipcRenderer.send(), ipcRenderer.sendSync(), ipcRenderer.sendTo(), ipcRenderer.invoke(), ipcRenderer.postMessage() etc ...

Actual Behavior

ipcRenderer seems broken sometime:

• The main process never received the message sent by ipcRenderer.send(), ipcRenderer.sendSync(), ipcRenderer.invoke(), ipcRenderer.postMessage()
• Other renderer process never received the message sent by ipcRenderer.sendTo()
• ipcRenderer.sendSync() always returns null
• ipcRenderer.on() can still receive the message from other process
• Unable to create a new <webview> element
• ipcRenderer works fine in other webContents, including window and webview
• ipcRenderer works normal after the page reloaded

Testcase Gist URL

No response

Additional Information

I'm sorry I can't reproduce the issue, it happened randomly in some user's machine, both macOS and Windows system.

I don't know how to debug this problem, maybe the mojo message pipe disconnected? And how can I debug the ipcRenderer internal implementation?

Maybe related: #25035 #31733

[dsanders11]

Thank you for taking the time to report this issue and helping to make Electron better.

The version of Electron reported in this issue has reached end-of-life and is no longer supported.

If you're still experiencing this issue in the latest version of Electron, please add a comment specifying the version you're testing with and any other new information that a maintainer trying to reproduce the issue should know.

I'm setting the blocked/need-info label for the above reasons. If we don't see a response in 10 days, I'll close this issue.

Thanks in advance! Your help is appreciated.

[zhanghaobin]

@dsanders11 Thank you for your reply!

I wonder how could I debug this issue? What information would help to debug this issue and how to collect such information?

Is there any guesses on this issue? For example, what causes ipcRenderer.sendSync() always returns null?

[dsanders11]

@zhanghaobin, if you can confirm you see the behavior on newer, supported versions of Electron (ideally v22), then we can dig a bit deeper on debugging.

[zhanghaobin]

Sorry, we don't have the plan to upgrade Electron version to such high version for our App in a short time. I just want to figure out the causes of this issue and try to avoid it.

But I can try to package our App with high Electron version and see if the issue recurs.

[codebytere]

We haven't gotten a response to our questions in our comment above. With only the information that is currently in the issue, we don't have enough information to take action. In this event, i'm going to go ahead and close this but can reopen should you follow up with more info!

[Rabbitzzc]

@dsanders11 Thank you for your reply!

I wonder how could I debug this issue? What information would help to debug this issue and how to collect such information?

Is there any guesses on this issue? For example, what causes ipcRenderer.sendSync() always returns null?

in api/remote.ts file

const command = IPC_MESSAGES.BROWSER_MEMBER_GET;
const meta = ipcRender.sendSync(command, ....)

In some cases, the meta is null.. I have no idea...