Stuck on an issue?

Lightrun Answers was designed to reduce the constant googling that comes with debugging 3rd party libraries. It collects links to all the places you might be looking at while hunting down a tough bug.

And, if you’re still stuck at the end, we’re happy to hop on a call to see how we can help out.

child process `exec` blocks several minutes since v0.62.0

See original GitHub issue

NWJS Version : 0.62.0, (no error in 0.61.0) Operating System : MacOS 11.6.4 (Big Sur), Mac OS 12.2.1 (Monterey), Windows 10

Expected behavior

exec('ls', {timeout: 2000}, callback); should return immediately and invoke the callback with the result in stdout within 1 or 2 seconds.

Actual behavior

exec('ls', {timeout: 2000}, callback); blocks the entire process for a few minutes and invokes the callback with the result in stdout also just after a few minutes

How to reproduce

open the developer console.
enter the code.

const exec = nw.require('child_process').exec;
exec('ls', {timeout: 2000}, (error, stdout) => {
    if (error) { 
      alert(error.message);
    }
    else {
     console.log(stdout);
   }
});

With nwjs v0.62.0 the dev console is blocked for a few minutes. With v0.61.0 there is no such blocking.

19:45:22.815 exec('ls', {timeout: 2000}, (error, stdout) => { console.log(stdout);});
19:47:18.252 ChildProcess {_events: {…}, _eventsCount: 2, _maxListeners: undefined, _closesNeeded: 3, _closesGot: 0, …}
19:47:18.276 empty.html package.json

Example Project

package.json

{
  "name": "test-child-process",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "main": "index.html",
  "window": {
    "width": 800,
    "height": 800,
    "id":"hello-nwjs-test-app",
    "title": "Hello NWJS!"
  }
}

index.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="DE">
<head>
   <style>
      .files {
         white-space: pre;
      }
   </style>
</head>
<body>
	<h2>Files:</h2>
   <div class="files"></div>
   
   <script>
      const 
         exec = nw.require('child_process').exec;
         cmd = process.platform === "win32" ? "dir" : "ls";
      
      exec(cmd, {timeout: 2000}, (error, stdout) => {
          if (error) { 
              alert(error.message);
          }
          else {
             document.querySelector('.files').textContent = stdout;
          }
      });
   </script>
</body>
</html>