Electron-packager: Cannot create symlinks; skipping darwin platform on Windows

Created on 5 Jul 2015 · 6Comments · Source: electron/electron-packager

v5.0.0
npm run clean:osx && electron-packager ./app \"sulu\" --out=dist --platform=darwin --arch=x64 --version=0.25.3 --icon=src/icon.icns
windows 7 32bit

Returns Cannot create symlinks; skipping darwin platform :crying_cat_face:

Source

s-a

Most helpful comment

It works running cmd.exe as admin. Strange. I am always logged in as administrator! Anyway ty for help!

s-a on 5 Jul 2015

👍2

All 6 comments

That message is due to electron-packager working around #71 (which I see you've also commented on); without the workaround, electron-packager would just silently bail out in this situation.

You can try running as administrator on Windows to get around this, but even then, I'm not sure there's a safe way to zip up the OS X app - I tried Windows' built-in compressed folder and 7-zip and both trip up on the symlinks.

I'm inclined to close this and continue tracking #71.

kfranqueiro on 5 Jul 2015

👍1

It works running cmd.exe as admin. Strange. I am always logged in as administrator! Anyway ty for help!

s-a on 5 Jul 2015

👍2

No problem. I'll close this then.

kfranqueiro on 5 Jul 2015

Just in case any one else having trouble to copy symlinks on windows for :apple: distribution

xcopy /b /Y /E . c:\dist-osx\

s-a on 5 Jul 2015

@kfranqueiro you are right. Far away from easy to distribute. Cannot zip and cannot add symlinks to git repo :/

s-a on 5 Jul 2015

Another option here is to use Docker with a named volume, which is essentially a shortcut for doing the whole packaging step in a linux VM. For an example, see https://github.com/toolness/walden-journal-extractor/commit/f5191c98ae420f2405024c96dfd43c1fd781c1cc.

Obviously it's still _far_ from ideal, though.