Node-serialport: Prebuild-install paths are hard to use / lack documentation for multi-platform use

[Josverl]

Summary of Problem

(Please answer all 3)

• What are you trying to do?
  In trying to use prebuild-install to retrieve the bindings for multiple electron versions & platforms
  C:\develop\<project>\node_modules\@serialport\bindings>.\node_modules\.bin\prebuild-install.cmd --runtime electron --target 4.2.5 --arch x64 --platform win32 --verbose

• What happens?
  prebuild-install is not able to find

prebuild-install info begin Prebuild-install version 5.3.0
prebuild-install info looking for cached prebuild @ C:\Users\josverl\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_prebuilds\e9e8d7-bindings-v2.0.8-electron-v69-win32-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install http request GET https://github.com/node-serialport/node-serialport/releases/download/v2.0.8/bindings-v2.0.8-electron-v69-win32-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install http 404 https://github.com/node-serialport/node-serialport/releases/download/v2.0.8/bindings-v2.0.8-electron-v69-win32-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install WARN install No prebuilt binaries found (target=4.2.5 runtime=electron arch=x64 libc= platform=win32)

the same happens also when using the default platform, version & architecture

C:\develop\pymakr-vsc\node_modules\@serialport\bindings>.\node_modules\.bin\prebuild-install.cmd --verbose
prebuild-install info begin Prebuild-install version 5.3.0
prebuild-install info looking for cached prebuild @ C:\Users\josverl\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_prebuilds\89c4e1-bindings-v2.0.8-node-v64-win32-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install http request GET https://github.com/node-serialport/node-serialport/releases/download/v2.0.8/bindings-v2.0.8-node-v64-win32-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install http 404 https://github.com/node-serialport/node-serialport/releases/download/v2.0.8/bindings-v2.0.8-node-v64-win32-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install WARN install No prebuilt binaries found (target=10.15.1 runtime=node arch=x64 libc= platform=win32)

this makes it very hard and troublesome to build and distribute multi-platform packages
also due to quite sparse documentation it is hard to find out why thinks are not working.

• What should have happened?

The prebuilds should be found , downloaded, and subsequently installed

it would be even better to have documentation on how to install / download for multiple platforms ( i.e. prepackage for 3 platforms for electron 4.2.5.

Code to Reproduce the Issue

see above ..

possible cause

Comparing the URLs used by prebuild-install and the URLs currently used there appreatrs to be 2 mismatches :

| what | link
|------|--------
| prebuild-install | https://github.com/node-serialport/node-serialport/releases/download/v2.0.8/bindings-v2.0.8-electron-v69-win32-x64.tar.gz
| releases | https://github.com/serialport/node-serialport/releases/download/%40serialport%2Fbindings%402.0.8/bindings-v2.0.8-electron-v69-win32-x64.tar.gz

I notice that in the path there are in 2 place in the path that are incorrect

| where | prebuild-install | git hosted
|--------|--------|------
| path root folder | node-serialport | serialport
| version folder | v2.0.8 |@serialport/[email protected]|

Versions, Operating System and Hardware

• SerialPort@[email protected] and 2.0.8
• Node.js - v10.15.1
• Windows 10.0.18362.10000
• Hardware : n/a

[Josverl]

explaining the problem made me look at options to change the version prefix

it turns out there is an option in prebuild-install to do that :-) : --tag-prefix
--tag-prefix @serialport/bindings@

C:\develop\<project>\node_modules\@serialport\bindings>node .\node_modules\prebuild-install\bin.js --runtime electron --target 4.2.5 --arch x64 --platform darwin --tag-prefix @serialport/bindings@ --verbose

This results in a successful install of the binding for electron-mac-x64 build on a windows machine

prebuild-install info begin Prebuild-install version 5.3.0
prebuild-install info looking for cached prebuild @ C:\Users\josverl\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_prebuilds\6a8d11-bindings-v2.0.8-electron-v69-darwin-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install http request GET https://github.com/node-serialport/node-serialport/releases/download/@serialport/[email protected]/bindings-v2.0.8-electron-v69-darwin-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install http 200 https://github.com/node-serialport/node-serialport/releases/download/@serialport/[email protected]/bindings-v2.0.8-electron-v69-darwin-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install info downloading to @ C:\Users\josverl\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_prebuilds\6a8d11-bindings-v2.0.8-electron-v69-darwin-x64.tar.gz.22648-63b6b0d443a6b.tmp
prebuild-install info renaming to @ C:\Users\josverl\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_prebuilds\6a8d11-bindings-v2.0.8-electron-v69-darwin-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install info unpacking @ C:\Users\josverl\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_prebuilds\6a8d11-bindings-v2.0.8-electron-v69-darwin-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install info unpack resolved to C:\develop\<project>\node_modules\@serialport\bindings\build\Release\bindings.node
prebuild-install info install Successfully installed prebuilt binary!

Note that there is still a path mismatch , but apparently this is resolved somehow so I won't worry about that anymore.

Still , given the time I have spend to figure this out, I think this calls for some additional documentation.
this is seconded by : #1895, #1853, ,and to some extent by #1891 , #1874,

If there is another or a simpler solution to package serialport in a single multi-platform module, while still using the prebuilts, please let me know.

Note2:
node-gyp is never the answer with multi-platform . It is highly unreliable on windows , and it has a very very footprint even it does. Its OK for Dev , but not for a package.

[sacha67]

Had the same problem when I upgraded serialport in my project.
@Josverl Thank you for the solution.

[JuanM04]

So, how do I solve it? When I run electron-build -w on mac, prebuild tries to fetch and the build stops

[Josverl]

So, how do I solve it? When I run electron-build -w on mac, prebuild tries to fetch and the build stops

@JuanM04, I do not see how this is related to the issue I raised, and your description is quite sparse. So I cannot help you.

[JuanM04]

Nevermind, I solved it. I just commented here because hours of trying to fix it brought me here. What happened is that electron-builder uses prebuild-install when building an Electron app. There is somewhere an issue related to this, and I'm also going to post my solution there.

I just created a .prebuild-installrc to do it automatically for me:

"scripts": {
  "postinstall": "echo \"tag-prefix=@serialport/bindings@\" > ./node_modules/@serialport/bindings/.prebuild-installrc && electron-builder install-app-deps"
}

[Josverl]

I have create a script to download bindings for multiple versions & platforms and store them in a simple file structure, so they can be used to load the module dynamically.

https://github.com/Josverl/pymakr-vsc/blob/fix/SerialMultiPlatform/scripts/mp-download.ps1

its in powershell as i find that simpler to write / debug , but I think it can be transposed to just any other scripting language

[Josverl]

It should be noted that it appears that a number of the published builds are actually incorrect
https://github.com/serialport/node-serialport/issues/1920

[phhoef]

@Josverl I am using macOS, but I've the same issue.
Thanks for your effort for describing your solution.

Unfortunately, I do not completely understand, what you've done.
You ran this command C:\develop\<project>\node_modules\@serialport\bindings>node .\node_modules\prebuild-install\bin.js --runtime electron --target 4.2.5 --arch x64 --platform darwin --tag-prefix @serialport/bindings@ --verbose and the important point is the --tag-prefix-flag, right?
Do you run this after every yarn or npm install? Is it sufficient to run it once?
Did you find a way to integrate it into a script of the package.json?
To cut a long story short: Is there a way to properly integrate your solution in order to make it work every time without any additional command execution?

Thanks

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