Error when building Electron app for dist

[stephen776]

When I package my electron app for distribution using electron-builder I am getting the following error:

Error: his is not a published, standalone application and we are unable to locate the .NET Core SDK.  Please make sure that it is installed; see http://microsoft.com/net/core for more details.

I am using the same .NET code as the quickstart for a proof-of-concept.

Any ideas on why I'd get this error? I have confirmed the .dlls are getting copied into the package.

[agracio]

To be honest its not the first time that people have problems when using electron-builder. Since I never used it myself I cannot offer much assistance.
Have you confirmed that process.env.EDGE_APP_ROOT is set to location that all your dlls are located, that location should also include a complete set of .NET Core dlls list like it does in quick start.

[stephen776]

I have just confirmed that the EDGE_APP_ROOT is being set properly. I have configured electron-builder to not use .asar files to package the app. I can see that the package does contain all of the .dlls in the proper place but the issue remains.

Electron-builder is an extremely popular package in the electron community. Would it be possible for you to look into the issue and possibly help support it's usage. Do you know of other users that have successfully got this combo to work?

[agracio]

From what I have seen so far Edge.js does not work from asar archives in general. There were multiple issues and questions on Slack about it and to my knowledge you cannot pack Edge.js into asar archive. You would need to have all Edge.js specific parts outside asar archive.

[agracio]

On a related note if you create a sample repo that uses electron-builder to package the app I will try to take a look at it, but really don't hold your breath.

[consense]

Hmmm, had various problems with the build step of native dependency edge.js with electron-builder in the past, but those were minor bumps.
In general edge.js works from asar electron app also in dist

[agracio]

First time I hear about it, all the issues that were raised so far were left unresolved. But this means there is some hope :) Are you getting this problem on specific OS or all of them?

[stephen776]

@consense How are you packaging you .net code in your electron-builder app? Are you referencing DLLs or scripting .net right inside your JS code?

My setup on the edge/.net side is exactly like the electron-edge-js quickstart. I have tried including the DLLs as extraFiles and extraResources.
the files end up where they should be but no luck running the packaged app.

[stephen776]

I am on a mac, btw.

[agracio]

@stephen776 I am assuming that quickstart does not work for you at all? This is a separate issue not related to electron-builder

[stephen776]

Quickstart works fine as is. When I take the same .net code from the quickstart and copy it into my electron-builder app...it works fine in development but when I package for release, I get the error.

[agracio]

Ok, this is rather confusing as I am getting multiple reports of edge-js-quick-start not working on macOS and Linux. Will have to look into all of the issues separately.
As I said electron-builder repo that replicates the problem (preferably on Windows) would be greatly appreciated.

[stephen776]

I had two issues when getting the quickstart to run on mac:

1. need to make sure the path to the assembly is correct. The path syntax that works on windows didn't work on mac.

2. Had to ensure I was using the right version of npm using nvm(8.9.3) when installing building npm packages.

Other than that works fine on mac.

[agracio]

Can you output the following env variables to console: process.env.EDGE_APP_ROOT and process.env.EDGE_BOOTSTRAP_DIR and see where they pointing? The error indicates that Edge cannot find .NET Core dlls in the directory.
And as I mentioned before I would only be able to investigate it myself if there is a repo that reproduces the problem.

[consense]

@stephen776 I am referencing dlls which are included via extraResources electron-builder config
Just to avoid a misunderstanding here: I am not using .net core, but expecting a normal dotnet runtime installed on the client.

[agracio]

The error is specific to .NET Core, quick-start is compiled to .NET Core and specifies process.env.EDGE_USE_CORECLR = 1. If your binaries are compiled to .NET Framework and you not setting the env variable you should not get this error.