[HOLD for payment 2022-08-11] [$250] Electron log file not working

[roryabraham]

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Action Performed:

Run a console.log in the Electron application.

Expected Result:

The log should be added to a log file for the app located at ~/Library/Logs/new.expensify/main.log

Actual Result:

The latest log in my ~/Library/Logs/new.expensify/main.log file is from 4 months ago.

Workaround:

n/a

Platform:

Where is this issue occurring?

• Desktop App

Version Number: 1.1.82-3
Reproducible in staging?: yes
Reproducible in production?: yes

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[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @MitchExpensify (External), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/8582 for more details.

[roryabraham]

Some information about the logs here. I know this used to work, and it was probably broken back when I set up a secure Electron implementation with IPC and nodeIntegration disabled: #7567.

[roryabraham]

The latest log I have in my log file is:

[2022-03-03 18:51:25.729] [info]  Update for version 1.1.40-2 is not available (latest version: 1.1.40-2, downgrade is disallowed).

So that makes me guess that electron-log was broken in the following release: https://github.com/Expensify/App/releases/tag/1.1.41-6

[roryabraham]

Interesting that release was the one that set up the 2-package structure. see the full diff here: 1.1.40-2...1.1.41-6

cc @kidroca

[MitchExpensify]

Upwork Job

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @mananjadhav (Exported)

[melvin-bot]

Current assignee @roryabraham is eligible for the Exported assigner, not assigning anyone new.

[kidroca]

@roryabraham when I worked on the "2-package" structure I needed to check logs, but couldn't find anything under ~/Library/Logs/new.expensify/main.log

I assumed I was probably doing something incorrectly because I could find no logs there

But now that I saw this issue, it might be due to console.log statements being dropped from the main.js code, since it's bundled by webpack (with mode: production) and this would remove console.log statempets

We should probably override that for Desktop main if we want console.log statements to remain

[roryabraham]

@kidroca let me know if you want this assigned to you. Otherwise @MitchExpensify let's double this

[kidroca]

@roryabraham

@kidroca let me know if you want this assigned to you. Otherwise @MitchExpensify let's double this

Yes, sounds good, I can post a small webpack config patch to preserve console statements for the main electron process

[melvin-bot]

📣 @kidroca You have been assigned to this job by @roryabraham!
Please apply to this job in Upwork and leave a comment on the Github issue letting us know when we can expect a PR to be ready for review 🧑‍💻
Keep in mind: Code of Conduct | Contributing 📖

[roryabraham]

@mananjadhav Going to unassign you on this one because it sounds like @kidroca's got this. The fix should be pretty easy to validate.

[kidroca]

I think I'll be ready with a PR tomorrow or the day after

[roryabraham]

Cool, thanks @kidroca. Full-disclosure: I'm pretty swamped this week so it might take me a few days to get to the PR. I'll do my best to review it as soon as I can

[MitchExpensify]

Doubled! Upwork job

[roryabraham]

Thanks @MitchExpensify – I think since @kidroca is working on this he'll just bill us hourly. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong @kidroca

[kidroca]

Thanks @MitchExpensify – I think since @kidroca is working on this he'll just bill us hourly. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong @kidroca

Yes, I'll add the work here under the hourly contract, it's more convenient

(💲 Don't tempt me by doubling the price 💲)

[MitchExpensify]

Thanks for the catch @roryabraham! Sounds good @kidroca :D

[kidroca]

It turned out console logs are not stripped from the minified main.js code

I've added a bunch console statements
Then built the desktop app
And the console statements can all be seen in desktop/dist/main.js - the bundled code

I've searched a bit more and found the log file in: ~/Library/Logs/new.expensify.desktop
It contained everything that has been logged and my sample logs
The new folder name is the result of the desktop/package.json

App/desktop/package.json

Line 2 in c5fb877

"name": "new.expensify.desktop",

Here's how electron-log picks the log file location: https://github.com/megahertz/electron-log/blob/HEAD/docs/file.md#appname-string-deprecated

Determines a location of log file, something like ~/.config/<app name>/log.log depending on OS. By default, electron-log reads this value from name or productName value in package.json. In most cases you should keep default value.

1. Can you verify you have newer logs in - ~/Library/Logs/new.expensify.desktop (vs ~/Library/Logs/new.expensify)
2. Do we want to override that location or set a different name for the package?

[roryabraham]

Can you verify you have newer logs in - ~/Library/Logs/new.expensify.desktop (vs ~/Library/Logs/new.expensify)

Yes! I've got them there

Do we want to override that location or set a different name for the package?

Nope, let's just update the documentation with the new location here and here and maybe add something to the README in the desktop folder about the log file. Thanks!

[kidroca]

PR ready

• [NO QA] Desktop: document log file location #10132

[kidroca]

BTW I've found out some additional stuff that we can do

• we can prefix auto update related logs with autoUpdater
• we can capture renderer logs to file if we register electron-log in the context bridge
• we can output main logs in the dev tools console (be able to see the autoUpdater logs live for example)

Any interest in any of these?

[roryabraham]

Sure @kidroca, happy to review PRs for all of those things. Thanks!

[melvin-bot]

The solution for this issue has been 🚀 deployed to production 🚀 in version 1.1.87-9 and is now subject to a 7-day regression period 📆. Here is the list of pull requests that resolve this issue:

• [NO QA] Desktop: document log file location #10132

If no regressions arise, payment will be issued on 2022-08-11. 🎊

[MitchExpensify]

Thanks for you help with this @kidroca ! I see you've added it to your hourly contract so we're all good here