When launching alephium wallet a second time on Windows, it offers option to import/start new wallet

[diomark]

I had alephium wallet running in the background and didn't realize it. launched alephium wallet again and it gave me the option to import/start new wallet.. might be confusing to some. (I almost re-imported my keys before realizing I had it running backgrounded in a different window).

It's basically launching a second instance instead of focusing on the already launched instance.

[nop33]

Hi @diomark, thanks for the feedback. Which version of Windows are you using?

When you say that the wallet was running in the background, do you mean that there was a window open and hidden behind other windows? Or that all windows of the application were closed and the process was still running in the background?

Was this the screen you saw when you opened the application the second time, after already creating a wallet?

Thanks a lot for the valuable feedback!

[polarker]

@nop33 @mvaivre is this related to our latest fix PR? If so, we need to assign a bounty for this issue report

[nop33]

I haven't been able to reproduce this on my macbook, waiting for input from @diomark. I can check with @Arbaba who is using Windows, when I see him on Friday.

[diomark]

Windows 10 [Version 10.0.19043.1348]

The existing wallet window was just hiding behind other windows (i.e. functioning correctly/not crashed)

This is pretty easy to replicate -

Start alephium wallet, login

Start alephium wallet again (from start menu. It will give the options of new wallet or importing wallet (vs just focusing on the already opened wallet)

[diomark]

btw - yes - that's the screen that shows up when launching a second time. (option for new wallet or importing)

[nop33]

I managed to reproduce the issue. I still haven't found a solution. Some notes during my debugging:

• We create new windows only when 2 events get triggered: ready and activate.
• Even when commenting out the callback of the activate event completely, when clicking the installed Windows Alephium app it still opens a second window. The only place where createWindow is now called is in the ready event callback. Updating the callback to the following snippet does not solve the problem (second window opens again):

  app.on('ready', () => {
    if (mainWindow === null) createWindow()
  })

• I tried this, also no success:

  app.on('ready', () => {
    if (BrowserWindow.getAllWindows().length === 0) createWindow()
  })

• I tried updating the snippet to the following, again, without success:

  app.whenReady().then(() => {
    if (mainWindow === null) createWindow()
  })

• It would seem that every time the installed exe is launched on Windows (located at C:\Users\<my-user-name>\AppData\Local\Programs\alephium-wallet\Alephium.exe), the mainWindow variable is set to null.

Need to keep debugging...

[polarker]

I managed to reproduce the issue. I still haven't found a solution. Some notes during my debugging:

• We create new windows only when 2 events get triggered: ready and activate.
• Even when commenting out the callback of the activate event completely, when clicking the installed Windows Alephium app it still opens a second window. The only place where createWindow is now called is in the ready event callback. Updating the callback to the following snippet does not solve the problem (second window opens again):

  app.on('ready', () => {
    if (mainWindow === null) createWindow()
  })

• I tried this, also no success:

  app.on('ready', () => {
    if (BrowserWindow.getAllWindows().length === 0) createWindow()
  })

• I tried updating the snippet to the following, again, without success:

  app.whenReady().then(() => {
    if (mainWindow === null) createWindow()
  })

• It would seem that every time the installed exe is launched on Windows (located at C:\Users\<my-user-name>\AppData\Local\Programs\alephium-wallet\Alephium.exe), the mainWindow variable is set to null.

Need to keep debugging...

Is this the same for Macos ?

[nop33]

Is this the same for Macos ?

No. Everything works fine there.

[nop33]

It turns out that this is not a bug. This is the expected behavior on Windows. Here is an example with another popular electron app (Visual Studio Code). As you can see in the demo, double-clicking the executable opens a new window, exactly as it happens with our wallet.

Kapture.2021-12-21.at.15.36.24.mp4

[nop33]

However, if an account has already been created, the second window should display the Login page, not the new wallet creation/import page.

[nop33]

For the record, here's a demo of the problem:

Kapture.2021-12-21.at.15.48.54.mp4