Paths for native modules and binaries imported by a renderer process being changed to .webpack/main instead of .webpack/renderer

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• I have read the contribution documentation for this project.
• I agree to follow the code of conduct that this project follows, as appropriate.
• I have searched the issue tracker for a bug that matches the one I want to file, without success.

Issue Details

• Electron Forge Version:
  • 6.0.0-beta.50
• Electron Version:
  • 8.1.1
• Operating System:
  • Windows 10 (1903)
• Last Known Working Electron Forge version::
  • N/A

Expected Behavior

When using trash (dependency for deleting files and moving them to the current OS’ native recycling bin), the executables macos-trash and windows-trash.exe should be copied over to .webpack/renderer/native_modules and the path to these executables in the main_window/index.js file should reflect the renderer path.

Actual Behavior

macos-trash and windows-trash.exe are properly copied over to .webpack/renderer/native_modules but the path in main_window/index.js was rewritten to .webpack/main instead of .webpack/renderer. When trying to delete a file, it throws a an error:

Uncaught (in promise) Error: spawn C:\path\to\testElectronTrashApp\.webpack\main/../native_modules/windows-trash.exe ENOENT
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:264)
    at onErrorNT (internal/child_process.js:456)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:80)

To Reproduce

1. Create a new project and install trash and string-replace-loader.

npx create-electron-app testElectronTrashApp --template=webpack
cd testElectronTrashApp
npm install trash

1. Create an empty text file named temp.txt
2. In webpack.rules.js add the following lines (workaround for default export):

{
    test: /parsers\.js$/,
    loader: 'string-replace-loader',
    options: {
      search: 'module.exports = parsers;',
      replace: 'export default parsers;',
    }
  }

1. In the main renderer file import trash and try to delete temp.txt:

import trash from 'trash';
trash('C:\\path\\to\\testElectronTrashApp\\temp.txt')

1. Run the app: npm start

Additional Information

It seems like the fix is fairly straightforward. In the Webpack.ts file under the Webpack plugin, on line 100 inRendererDir should be passed to the assetRelocatorBaseDir function.

[ysdexlic]

hey @mohyddintash, I fixed by following the step left in the comment and a bit more:

• As said by @Mac-Genius, “In the Webpack.ts file under the Webpack plugin, on line 100 inRendererDir should be passed to the assetRelocatorBaseDir function.”, you can find this file in the node_modules although it’s not the safest thing to do to fix the issue (it’ll be overwritten every time you install deps)
• After that fix, a new bug arose about a directory not existing. If you come across this the fix is - in the same file at line 86 and line 93 they reference any_folder. As the any_folder directory didn’t exist this was erroring. I changed it to be the name of my main window main_window as a hack (any directory in the renderer directory should work) but the real fix would be to stop whatever is moving up a directory (adding ../ to the path) as they’ve clearly added any_folder in an attempt to negate it.

I’m not working on the project anymore but after resolving these two issues I ran into even more but I think they were quite library specific.

I hope this helps, let me know if you have any more questions.

[Chris533]

Hi @Mac-Genius @ysdexlic @MarshallOfSound I’m also runnig into the same issue, how can I fix it or go around it untill it’s fixed? Thanks!

Using native module in renderer, you can copy from node_modules manually, not perffect, duplicate with renderer/native_modules (e.g. better-sqlite3):

yarn add copy-webpack-plugin -D

webpack.plugins.js

const ForkTsCheckerWebpackPlugin = require('fork-ts-checker-webpack-plugin');
const CopyPlugin = require('copy-webpack-plugin');

module.exports = [
  new CopyPlugin({
    patterns: [
      { from: './node_modules/better-sqlite3/build/Release/better_sqlite3.node', to: '../native_modules/build/Release/better_sqlite3.node' },
    ],
  }),
  new ForkTsCheckerWebpackPlugin(),
];

Tested in start and package.