Electron app uses full paths when loading a native module, thus only working on the computer it was packaged

[pancho111203]

I'm having problems loading native modules on an Electron app built with Webpack. The error is this:

It's trying to load "robotjs.node" from the path "/Users/RUBI35900/..etc, which is from the computer I package the app (RUBI35900 is my development machine). And this error throws on a different machine. So it seems that webpack stores the full path instead of using a relative one, so it only works on the machine that was used for packaging the app.

Here is my webpack config:

Base:

/**
 * Base webpack config used across other specific configs
 */

import path from 'path';
import webpack from 'webpack';
import { dependencies as externals } from './app/package.json';

export default {
  externals: Object.keys(externals || {}),

  module: {
    rules: [{
      test: /\.jsx?$/,
      exclude: /node_modules/,
      use: {
        loader: 'babel-loader',
        options: {
          cacheDirectory: true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      test: /\.node$/,
      use: 'node-loader'
    }]
  },

  output: {
    path: path.join(__dirname, 'app'),
    filename: 'bundle.js',
    // https://github.com/webpack/webpack/issues/1114
    libraryTarget: 'commonjs2'
  },

  /**
   * Determine the array of extensions that should be used to resolve modules.
   */
  resolve: {
    extensions: ['.js', '.jsx', '.json'],
    modules: [
      path.join(__dirname, 'app'),
      'node_modules',
    ],
  },

  plugins: [
    new webpack.NamedModulesPlugin(),
  ],
};

Main process:

/**
 * Webpack config for production electron main process
 */

import webpack from 'webpack';
import merge from 'webpack-merge';
import BabiliPlugin from 'babili-webpack-plugin';
import { BundleAnalyzerPlugin } from 'webpack-bundle-analyzer';
import baseConfig from './webpack.config.base';

export default merge.smart(baseConfig, {
  devtool: 'source-map',

  target: 'electron-main',

  entry: ['babel-polyfill', './app/main.dev'],

  // 'main.js' in root
  output: {
    path: __dirname,
    filename: './app/main.prod.js'
  },

  plugins: [
    /**
     * Babli is an ES6+ aware minifier based on the Babel toolchain (beta)
     */
    new BabiliPlugin(),

    new BundleAnalyzerPlugin({
      analyzerMode: process.env.OPEN_ANALYZER === 'true' ? 'server' : 'disabled',
      openAnalyzer: process.env.OPEN_ANALYZER === 'true'
    }),

    /**
     * Create global constants which can be configured at compile time.
     *
     * Useful for allowing different behaviour between development builds and
     * release builds
     *
     * NODE_ENV should be production so that modules do not perform certain
     * development checks
     */
    new webpack.DefinePlugin({
      'process.env.NODE_ENV': JSON.stringify(process.env.NODE_ENV || 'production'),
      'process.env.DEBUG_PROD': JSON.stringify(process.env.DEBUG_PROD || 'false'),
      $dirname: '__dirname'
    }),
  ],

  /**
   * Disables webpack processing of __dirname and __filename.
   * If you run the bundle in node.js it falls back to these values of node.js.
   * https://github.com/webpack/webpack/issues/2010
   */
  node: {
    __dirname: false,
    __filename: false
  },
});

Renderer:

/**
 * Build config for electron renderer process
 */

import path from 'path';
import webpack from 'webpack';
import ExtractTextPlugin from 'extract-text-webpack-plugin';
import { BundleAnalyzerPlugin } from 'webpack-bundle-analyzer';
import merge from 'webpack-merge';
import BabiliPlugin from 'babili-webpack-plugin';
import baseConfig from './webpack.config.base';

export default merge.smart(baseConfig, {
  devtool: 'source-map',

  target: 'electron-renderer',

  entry: ['babel-polyfill', './app/index'],

  output: {
    path: path.join(__dirname, 'app/dist'),
    publicPath: '../dist/'
  },

  module: {
    rules: [
      // Extract all .global.css to style.css as is
      {
        test: /\.global\.css$/,
        use: ExtractTextPlugin.extract({
          use: 'css-loader',
          fallback: 'style-loader',
        })
      },
      // Pipe other styles through css modules and append to style.css
      {
        test: /^((?!\.global).)*\.css$/,
        use: ExtractTextPlugin.extract({
          use: {
            loader: 'css-loader',
            options: {
              modules: true,
              importLoaders: 1,
              localIdentName: '[name]__[local]__[hash:base64:5]',
            }
          }
        }),
      },
      // Add SASS support  - compile all .global.scss files and pipe it to style.css
      {
        test: /\.global\.scss$/,
        use: ExtractTextPlugin.extract({
          use: [
            {
              loader: 'css-loader'
            },
            {
              loader: 'sass-loader'
            }
          ],
          fallback: 'style-loader',
        })
      },
      // Add SASS support  - compile all other .scss files and pipe it to style.css
      {
        test: /^((?!\.global).)*\.scss$/,
        use: ExtractTextPlugin.extract({
          use: [{
            loader: 'css-loader',
            options: {
              modules: true,
              importLoaders: 1,
              localIdentName: '[name]__[local]__[hash:base64:5]',
            }
          },
          {
            loader: 'sass-loader'
          }]
        }),
      },
      // WOFF Font
      {
        test: /\.woff(\?v=\d+\.\d+\.\d+)?$/,
        use: {
          loader: 'url-loader',
          options: {
            limit: 10000,
            mimetype: 'application/font-woff',
          }
        },
      },
      // WOFF2 Font
      {
        test: /\.woff2(\?v=\d+\.\d+\.\d+)?$/,
        use: {
          loader: 'url-loader',
          options: {
            limit: 10000,
            mimetype: 'application/font-woff',
          }
        }
      },
      // TTF Font
      {
        test: /\.ttf(\?v=\d+\.\d+\.\d+)?$/,
        use: {
          loader: 'url-loader',
          options: {
            limit: 10000,
            mimetype: 'application/octet-stream'
          }
        }
      },
      // EOT Font
      {
        test: /\.eot(\?v=\d+\.\d+\.\d+)?$/,
        use: 'file-loader',
      },
      // SVG Font
      {
        test: /\.svg(\?v=\d+\.\d+\.\d+)?$/,
        use: {
          loader: 'url-loader',
          options: {
            limit: 10000,
            mimetype: 'image/svg+xml',
          }
        }
      },
      // Common Image Formats
      {
        test: /\.(?:ico|gif|png|jpg|jpeg|webp)$/,
        use: 'url-loader',
      }
    ]
  },

  plugins: [
    /**
     * Create global constants which can be configured at compile time.
     *
     * Useful for allowing different behaviour between development builds and
     * release builds
     *
     * NODE_ENV should be production so that modules do not perform certain
     * development checks
     */
    new webpack.DefinePlugin({
      'process.env.NODE_ENV': JSON.stringify(process.env.NODE_ENV || 'production')
    }),

    /**
     * Babli is an ES6+ aware minifier based on the Babel toolchain (beta)
     */
    new BabiliPlugin(),

    new ExtractTextPlugin('style.css'),

    new BundleAnalyzerPlugin({
      analyzerMode: process.env.OPEN_ANALYZER === 'true' ? 'server' : 'disabled',
      openAnalyzer: process.env.OPEN_ANALYZER === 'true'
    }),
  ],
});

I created a repository to reproduce the issue:

https://github.com/pancho111203/electron-react-boilerplate

To reproduce:

1. clone the repo
2. run 'yarn'
3. run 'yarn package'
4. move the created release file to another computer
5. install and execute in that computer

The error should appear

[kzc]

Text is always preferable to screen captures. A link to a test case reproduction repo is better still.

[pancho111203]

@kzc Updated with text and reproduction repo!

[sokra]

The node-loader uses absolute path and only works locally. Either send a PR to fix it or add your native dependencies to externals.

[pancho111203]

Found related issue: webpack-contrib/node-loader#12