Electron-packager: 32-bit rcedit does not work on macOS 10.15 (Catalina) hosts when building Windows targets

[neuronflow]

Preflight Checklist

• [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 a bug that matches the one I want to file, without success.

Issue Details

• Electron Packager Version:
  13.1.1
  
  
  
  
  
• Electron Version:
  
  
  
  • 
    
    4.1.4
  
  
• Operating System:
  
  
  
  • 
    
    OSX 10.15
  
  
• Last Known Working Electron Packager version::
  
  
  
  • 
    
    13.1.1 / 14.0.6
  
  

Expected Behavior

package all apps

Actual Behavior

when packaging the windows app the following error msgs appear:

13.1.1:

Unhandled rejection Error: spawn Unknown system error -86
at ChildProcess.spawn (internal/child_process.js:366:11)
at spawn (child_process.js:551:9)
at module.exports (/Users/meow/data/phd/phd_projects/pipeline/code/elephant_client/node_modules/rcedit/lib/rcedit.js:47:15)
at P (/Users/meow/data/phd/phd_projects/pipeline/code/elephant_client/node_modules/electron-packager/node_modules/pify/index.js:32:6)
at new Promise ()
at /Users/meow/data/phd/phd_projects/pipeline/code/elephant_client/node_modules/electron-packager/node_modules/pify/index.js:6:9
at ret (/Users/meow/data/phd/phd_projects/pipeline/code/elephant_client/node_modules/electron-packager/node_modules/pify/index.js:56:76)
at getIconPath.then.icon (/Users/meow/data/phd/phd_projects/pipeline/code/elephant_client/node_modules/electron-packager/win32.js:95:39)

14.0.6:
Packaging app for platform darwin x64 using electron v4.1.4
Packaging app for platform mas x64 using electron v4.1.4
Packaging app for platform linux x64 using electron v4.1.4
Packaging app for platform win32 x64 using electron v4.1.4
(node:16768) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error: spawn Unknown system error -86
at ChildProcess.spawn (internal/child_process.js:366:11)
at spawn (child_process.js:551:9)
at Promise (/Users/meow/data/phd/phd_projects/pipeline/code/elephant_client/node_modules/rcedit/lib/rcedit.js:44:19)
at new Promise ()
at module.exports (/Users/meow/data/phd/phd_projects/pipeline/code/elephant_client/node_modules/rcedit/lib/rcedit.js:43:10)
at WindowsApp.runRcedit (/Users/meow/data/phd/phd_projects/pipeline/code/elephant_client/node_modules/electron-packager/src/win32.js:94:31)
(node:16768) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block, or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). (rejection id: 3)
(node:16768) [DEP0018] DeprecationWarning: Unhandled promise rejections are deprecated. In the future, promise rejections that are not handled will terminate the Node.js process with a non-zero exit code.
WARNING: signing is required for mas builds. Provide the osx-sign option, or manually sign the app later.

To Reproduce

Additional Information

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[antelle]

Hi! Got this as well. I guess, that's because wine is not x64 and doesn't work on macOS Catalina: https://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=32590

[antelle]

Created an issue in rcedit: https://github.com/electron/node-rcedit/issues/51

[malept]

I'm going to close this since this is rcedit-specific. You can track progress in the node-rcedit bug you filed.

[neuronflow]

thanks for the headsup..damn had I known about this issue before I would not have done the update -_-

[antelle]

I guess, we'll still need to upgrade rcedit when they fix it.

[antelle]

Maybe it makes sense to switch to another tool for writing icons? There are tools to read PE format in python, for example pefile. Example of icon extraction using it: https://github.com/firodj/extract-icon-py. I'm not sure if there's anything that allows writing icons into exe (will post here if I find anything), but it's possible that it exists.

[malept]

It's not just icons, there are also some Windows metadata (including a strange XML blob embedded in the EXE for administrative rights).

I would rather not require Python to be installed on top of needing Node for Electron Packager.

[antelle]

Well, Python is preinstalled on mac and exists everywhere on linux and it's for sure not that bad as requiring wine that does not exist at all for mac now. The problem is, if there's complex information, pefile can produce broken results 😞

[antelle]

I've solved it this way:

1. make a VM with Ubuntu+wine (use this hack to fix VirtualBox crashes on macOS Catalina)
2. remove wine
3. add a script called wine and inside this script upload everything to the VM, after which run wine there
4. override arguments, if necessary

Seems to be working fine here.

My wine script, to save some time if anyone wants to do the same: https://gist.github.com/antelle/10ca9beed2a83da9af918f1fce3fe7e7

Disclaimer: shitty quality everywhere here in my scripts. Use at your own risk.