[typescript][electron] Error when trying to start the TS server inside a bundled electron application

[kittaakos]

I need to add some error log here which I do not yet have...

[kittaakos]

It will be tough to figure out what is going on. When I start the application with either open /Applications/Theia.app/ or cd /Applications/Theia.app/Contents/MacOS/Theia && ./Theia it works. If I start the application from its application icon from, for instance, Finder, it does not work.

[kittaakos]

That's the best trace I have managed to collect after modifying the bundle.js inside the application:

[kittaakos]

I have this when starting the application from the terminal. I do not know yet whether it is realted to the TS LS issue or not.:

{"name":"Theia","hostname":"Akoss-MBP.fritz.box","pid":51856,"level":50,"msg":"Error: Header must provide a Content-Length property.\n    at StreamMessageReader.onData (/Applications/Theia.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/vscode-jsonrpc/lib/messageReader.js:200:27)\n    at Socket.<anonymous> (/Applications/Theia.app/Contents/Resources/app/node_modules/vscode-jsonrpc/lib/messageReader.js:185:19)\n    at emitOne (events.js:96:13)\n    at Socket.emit (events.js:191:7)\n    at readableAddChunk (_stream_readable.js:178:18)\n    at Socket.Readable.push (_stream_readable.js:136:10)\n    at Pipe.onread (net.js:560:20) []","time":"2018-02-27T13:44:08.070Z","v":0}

[svenefftinge]

Do you open it on a folder that has node_modules/typescript ?

[kittaakos]

Great pointer. That could be the difference.

[kittaakos]

So for sure, the environment is different from the Theia terminal and outside of Theia:

[kittaakos]

But, after modifying the typescript-contribution I can print both the TS and Node.js versions. The processConnectionStream object is initialized correctly.

[kittaakos]

There is clearly a difference when starting the application from the terminal and from the application "icon".

[kittaakos]

If I add the typescript dependency to the package.json to make sure typescript is inside the node_modules, I get the following error:

bundle.js:50966 Uncaught (in promise) Error: Request initialize failed with message: Couldn't find 'tsserver' executable
    at new ResponseError (file:///Users/akos.kitta/Desktop/Theia.app/Contents/Resources/app/lib/bundle.js:50966:28)
    at handleResponse (file:///Users/akos.kitta/Desktop/Theia.app/Contents/Resources/app/lib/bundle.js:11804:48)
    at processMessageQueue (file:///Users/akos.kitta/Desktop/Theia.app/Contents/Resources/app/lib/bundle.js:11632:17)
    at Immediate.<anonymous> (file:///Users/akos.kitta/Desktop/Theia.app/Contents/Resources/app/lib/bundle.js:11616:13)
    at runCallback (timers.js:672:20)
    at tryOnImmediate (timers.js:645:5)
    at processImmediate [as _immediateCallback] (timers.js:617:5)

The stack trace is useless, as it is from the browser, but the message says tsserver was not found although it is in under node_modules/typescript/bin. The binary execution inside an ASAR cannot be a problem here.

[svenefftinge]

Here is how the language server looks up the tsserver binary:

https://github.com/theia-ide/typescript-language-server/blob/master/src/lsp-server.ts#L69

For sure, we need to send proper information to the user in case it cannot find it. (see typescript-language-server/typescript-language-server#28)

[kittaakos]

Thanks!

I'm afraid this ticket tries to solve multiple problems:

• I am not sure if stdio can be used for the communication. I shall try with ipc.
• I will check the binary lookup too.
• The electron application seems to have different environment when started from command line and application icon. For instance, when started from the icon, node is not available from the terminal. It dies before even starting the TS server.

[kittaakos]

Workaround: declare typescript as a dependency in the package.json.

[kittaakos]

This has been fixed via #3534. POC: theia-ide/theia-apps#79