Assets not being inferred or included manually

[mmcguff]

I have an express API application where the POST routes will upload files into the directory structure temporarily. The files are uploaded into a folder called /uploads. In my code I have the following line:

 const filePathToMedia = path.join(__dirname, `../uploads/${apiFile}`);

which from my understanding of the documentation should auto-detect or infer that this directory /uploads should be included with the pkg when generating the executable.

However this doesn't appear to be happening. I get the following error when testing the POST route of my API:

  message:
   'Error: form-data: File or directory \'C:\\**\\app-name\\uploads\\test.wav\' was not included into executable at compilation stage. Please recompile adding it as asset or script.',     

This led me to think that maybe I needed to run pkg package.json vs pkg app.js and manually define my assets instead of depending on auto-detection of path.join to resolve them for me.

so I include this following in my package.json:

  "bin": "app.js",
  "pkg": {
    "assets": ["uploads/**/*"]
    },

However, I still get the same issue. Any ideas on what else I should try or to get my /uploads directory included? Any help would be really appreciated.

[isaelblais]

I also got the same strange problem fey days ago. Finally got to manage it by using absolute path to include the assets.

I know that using the absolute path seem not to be the best solution. In my case I am using a complete copy of the solution in a specific folder before compiling it.

[mmcguff]

I'm not totally following. Can you provide some steps on what I would need to do to make this work. Assuming for your example that the directory we want to include is called uploads.

[isaelblais]

Lets say I have :

My pkg.json file wich hold configs for packaging:
Location: /config/pkg/pkg.json

{
  "pkg": {
    "assets": [ 
      "../uploads/**/*",
      "../../node_modules/**/*" 
    ],
    "scripts": [
    ]
  }
}

Then in my package.json in scripts:

"pkgWin": "xcopy /e /s /I /Y ".*" "C:\Server-Output" && pkg C:/Server-Output/src/app.js -c C:/Server-Output/config/pkg/pkg.json"

As you can see, I called my pkg.json file from an absolute path from the copied folder of my server source. I dont know why but using a relative path here was not working. Very strange :s

Hope it works for you

[reduckted]

I was having the same issue with assets not being included, but the suggestion from @isaelblais led me to the solution. I had this in my package.json:

{
    "name": "demo",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "pkg": {
        "assets": "dist/client/**/*"
    }
}

And running pkg like this:

pkg index.js --targets node10-win-x64

But the assets weren't being included. As it turns out, the package.json file doesn't seem to be used as a config file automatically. If I run pkg like this:

pkg index.js --targets node10-win-x64 --config package.json

Then the assets are included. 🎉

[kevinmil]

I had the same problem when trying to package an app that allowed file uploads and then accessing those uploaded files. It appears to me that if you add a new file at runtime to a directory that is included in the asset paths, the pkg executable won't recognize the new file.

Ultimately I couldn't get it to work with pkg, but it worked like a charm when I built using nexe.

[Vishwas1]

I had the same problem when trying to package an app that allowed file uploads and then accessing those uploaded files. It appears to me that if you add a new file at runtime to a directory that is included in the asset paths, the pkg executable won't recognize the new file.

Ultimately I couldn't get it to work with pkg, but it worked like a charm when I built using nexe.

Even faces the same problem and worked with nexe. But when I am using nexe with pm2 on centos, it did not work. pm2 seems to be working with pkg very fine on centos but not with nexe

[dstampfer]

-config package.json saved my day. Did not know that one has to specify that manually.

[amitsingh1234567]

``

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open 90 days with no activity. Remove the stale label or comment or this will be closed in 5 days. To ignore this issue entirely you can add the no-stale label

[github-actions]

This issue is now closed due to inactivity, you can of course reopen or reference this issue if you see fit.

[DaggieBlanqx]

I was having the same issue with assets not being included, but the suggestion from @isaelblais led me to the solution. I had this in my package.json:

{
    "name": "demo",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "pkg": {
        "assets": "dist/client/**/*"
    }
}

And running pkg like this:

pkg index.js --targets node10-win-x64

But the assets weren't being included. As it turns out, the package.json file doesn't seem to be used as a config file automatically. If I run pkg like this:

pkg index.js --targets node10-win-x64 --config package.json

Then the assets are included. 🎉

This works like charm! I ran it with node16 and as follows: pkg index.js --targets node16-win-x64 --config package.json.
A few things to note, the .exe file will be named according to the name of the packge.json, in our case, it is named: demo.exe

[picode7]

For me I had to remove --out-path dist as well ...