Electron-packager: ENOENT on any spawn after packaging

[akcorp2003]

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

Please describe your issue:

In my electron app, I run spawn('dotnet', ["--version"], {cwd: someDirectory}). There's no problem when I'm just running npm start. However, once I package it up using electron-packager, it throws

 Error: spawn dotnet ENOENT
at exports._errnoException (util.js:1026:11)
at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:193:32)
at onErrorNT (internal/child_process.js:359:16)
at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:74:11)

I double-checked and I have dotnet in my PATH. Everything works as long as I don't package it up.

I found this discussion on atom that sounds very similar: every spawn task throws enoent when electron app packaged for distribution

Why is this happening?

Console output when you run electron-packager with the environment variable DEBUG=electron-packager. Please include the stack trace if one exists.

electron-packager Electron Packager 8.5.1 +0ms
  electron-packager Node v4.5.0 +2ms
  electron-packager Host Operating system: darwin (x64) +1ms
  electron-packager Packager Options: {"_":["."],"all":false,"deref-symlinks":true,"download":{"strictSSL":true},"overwrite":false,"prune":true,"quiet":false,"platform":"darwin","arch":"x64","dir":".","protocols":[]} +0ms
  electron-packager Target Platforms: darwin +0ms
  electron-packager Target Architectures: x64 +0ms
  electron-packager Inferring application name from productName in /Users/akuang/Ana/package.json +10ms
  electron-packager Inferring app-version from version in /Users/akuang/Ana/package.json +0ms
  electron-packager Inferring target Electron version from electron in /Users/akuang/Ana/package.json +3ms
  electron-packager Application name: Ana +0ms
  electron-packager Target Electron version: 1.4.15 +0ms
  electron-packager Ignored path regular expressions: [ '/node_modules/electron($|/)',
  '/node_modules/electron-prebuilt($|/)',
  '/node_modules/electron-packager($|/)',
  '/\\.git($|/)',
  '/node_modules/\\.bin($|/)',
  '\\.o(bj)?$' ] +0ms
  electron-packager Downloading Electron with options {"strictSSL":true,"platform":"darwin","arch":"x64","version":"1.4.15"} +3ms
Packaging app for platform darwin x64 using electron v1.4.15
  electron-packager Creating /var/folders/4d/wckyq6l15qx1w9_lp6xkpxb4jqjkbt/T/electron-packager/darwin-x64-template +179ms
  electron-packager Extracting /Users/akuang/.electron/electron-v1.4.15-darwin-x64.zip to /var/folders/4d/wckyq6l15qx1w9_lp6xkpxb4jqjkbt/T/electron-packager/darwin-x64-template +0ms
  electron-packager Initializing app in /var/folders/4d/wckyq6l15qx1w9_lp6xkpxb4jqjkbt/T/electron-packager/darwin-x64/Ana-darwin-x64 from /var/folders/4d/wckyq6l15qx1w9_lp6xkpxb4jqjkbt/T/electron-packager/darwin-x64-template template +978ms
  electron-packager Ignored paths based on the out param: [ '/Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-darwin-ia32',
  '/Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-darwin-x64',
  '/Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-darwin-armv7l',
  '/Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-linux-ia32',
  '/Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-linux-x64',
  '/Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-linux-armv7l',
  '/Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-mas-ia32',
  '/Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-mas-x64',
  '/Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-mas-armv7l',
  '/Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-win32-ia32',
  '/Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-win32-x64',
  '/Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-win32-armv7l' ] +2ms
  electron-packager Running npm prune --production +4s
  electron-packager Renaming Electron to Ana in /var/folders/4d/wckyq6l15qx1w9_lp6xkpxb4jqjkbt/T/electron-packager/darwin-x64/Ana-darwin-x64/Electron.app/Contents/MacOS +465ms
  electron-packager Renaming Electron Helper to Ana Helper in /var/folders/4d/wckyq6l15qx1w9_lp6xkpxb4jqjkbt/T/electron-packager/darwin-x64/Ana-darwin-x64/Electron.app/Contents/Frameworks/Electron Helper.app/Contents/MacOS +1ms
  electron-packager Renaming Electron Helper.app to Ana Helper.app in /var/folders/4d/wckyq6l15qx1w9_lp6xkpxb4jqjkbt/T/electron-packager/darwin-x64/Ana-darwin-x64/Electron.app/Contents/Frameworks +8ms
  electron-packager Renaming Electron Helper EH to Ana Helper EH in /var/folders/4d/wckyq6l15qx1w9_lp6xkpxb4jqjkbt/T/electron-packager/darwin-x64/Ana-darwin-x64/Electron.app/Contents/Frameworks/Electron Helper EH.app/Contents/MacOS +0ms
  electron-packager Renaming Electron Helper EH.app to Ana Helper EH.app in /var/folders/4d/wckyq6l15qx1w9_lp6xkpxb4jqjkbt/T/electron-packager/darwin-x64/Ana-darwin-x64/Electron.app/Contents/Frameworks +0ms
  electron-packager Renaming Electron Helper NP to Ana Helper NP in /var/folders/4d/wckyq6l15qx1w9_lp6xkpxb4jqjkbt/T/electron-packager/darwin-x64/Ana-darwin-x64/Electron.app/Contents/Frameworks/Electron Helper NP.app/Contents/MacOS +1ms
  electron-packager Renaming Electron Helper NP.app to Ana Helper NP.app in /var/folders/4d/wckyq6l15qx1w9_lp6xkpxb4jqjkbt/T/electron-packager/darwin-x64/Ana-darwin-x64/Electron.app/Contents/Frameworks +0ms
  electron-packager Moving /var/folders/4d/wckyq6l15qx1w9_lp6xkpxb4jqjkbt/T/electron-packager/darwin-x64/Ana-darwin-x64 to /Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-darwin-x64 +1ms
Wrote new app to /Users/akuang/Ana/Ana-darwin-x64

What command line arguments are you passing? Alternatively, if you are using the API, what
parameters are you passing to the packager() function?

. --platform=darwin --arch=x64

Please provide either a failing minimal testcase (with a link to the code) or detailed steps to
reproduce your problem. Using electron-quick-start
is a good starting point.

Just build anything and try to spawn some command.

const spawn = require('child_process').spawn
...
spawn('dotnet', ["--version"]) 

and so on...

[MarshallOfSound]

GUI apps not launched from the Command Line do not inherit the system path. You either need an absolute path to the executable you want to spawn.

Or use a tool like https://www.npmjs.com/package/fix-path to get your system path.

[akcorp2003]

It seems like it's working on the Mac!

Do you know if this issue exists on a Windows machine?

[MarshallOfSound]

@akcorp2003 I do not believe so, always good to test though 👍

Glad your issue is solved 😄

[akcorp2003]

As a follow up, there's no problem with spawning on a Windows system.