Mac Installer do not create .app folder in /Applications when launching .pkg

• Version: 19.16.0

• Target: pkg (macos)

Let’s say the application name is myApp and the build config in the package.json is the following:

"build": {
    "appId": "com.myorg.myapp",
    "nsis": {
      "include": "nsis/refreshDesktop.nsh",
      "artifactName": "MyAppSetup.${ext}"
    },
    "publish": {
      "provider": "generic",
      "url": "${env.MYAPP_UPDATE_URL}"
    },
    "mac": {
      "target": [
        "pkg",
        "zip"
      ],
      "artifactName": "MyAppSetup.${ext}"
    }
  }

Reproduction

Ok, so repro steps are:

1. build myApp

1. launch the .pkg
2. remove myApp.app from /Applications
3. relaunch pkg

Expected

myApp installed into /Applications

Observed

myApp not installed into /Applications

Diagnostic

Having something already called myApp.app somewhere in the disc like the one generated by electron-builder in the mac folder prevent the myAppl.app folder to be re-created into the /Applications folder.

This is related to this stackoverflow One of the comment suggest to have the BundleIsRelocatable set to false in the plist file. Could this be added as a new option for the .pkg target ?

[leonlianght]

Somehow MyApp.app is installed in release/mac instead of /Applications.

I have checked that after running npm run build, the owner of release/mac/foo.app is my account, and after installing the MyApp.pkg, the owner of release/mac/MyApp.app becomes root. That means the installation put MyApp.app in release/mac instead of /Applications.

However like @johnryan said, if I delete the release/mac folder, the installation will install MyApp.app in /Applications

My guess is that macOS somehow find that myApp.app is somehow exists and needs a upgrade install of re-install, so it replaces the myApp.app instead of putting it into /Applications.

[johnryan]

What I am noticing is that when building the app it gets built in release/mac. What seems to happen is that IF the MyApp.app file is present in the release/mac folder, the .pkg always installs to that directory (even if selecting /Applications). I can fix it by deleting the release folder.