npmRebuild config does not have an effect

[fb13]

• Electron-Builder Version: 23.0.3

• Node Version: 16.16.0

• Electron Version: 20.0.3
• Electron Type (current, beta, nightly): current

• Target: MacOS Catalina 10.15.7

I am trying to use fabric within my Electron application. When I install it using npm install fabric --save everything works and I can use it both in development and in production. But when I type in npm install for the project, it runs into some issues:

> [email protected] postinstall
> electron-builder install-app-deps

  • electron-builder  version=22.14.13
  • rebuilding native dependencies  [email protected] platform=darwin arch=x64
  ⨯ cannot execute  cause=exit status 1
                    errorOut=npm ERR! code 1

So my Electron app is running a postinstall script that tries to rebuild native dependencies, in this case, node-canvas which is used by fabric but throws an error for some reason.

I tried to stop electron-builder from building native dependencies, but the npmRebuild command does not have any effect. Here is my electron-builder configuration. I am using electron-builder as part of vue-cli-plugin-electron-builder but the electron-builder config is proxied through.

vue.config.js
...
electronBuilder: {
	mainProcessFile: 'src/background.js',
	mainProcessWatch: ['src/*.js'],
	preload: 'src/preload.js',
	extends: null,
	builderOptions: {
		appId: 'com.exploo.capture',
		npmRebuild: false,
		win: {
			icon: 'public/img/icon.png'
		},
		mac: {
			icon: 'public/img/icon.png'
		}
	},
	externals: ['ffmpeg-static', 'ffprobe-static'],
	nodeModulesPath: ['./node_modules'],

	// needed to work with ffmpeg
	chainWebpackMainProcess: config => {
		config.plugin('define').tap(args => {
			args[0]['process.env.FLUENTFFMPEG_COV'] = false
			return args
		})
	}
}

I also tried to put the npmRebuild: false in the other blocks - still not working.

I am seeing two options - both do not work at the moment:

1. Ideally node-canvas needs to have some prebuilds available for electron, correct? I created this ticket in the node-canvas issues. But not sure when the node-canvas maintainers will tackle it.
2. I tried npmRebuild: false like shared above to disable the rebuilding of native dependencies, but it does not have an effect as described above.

So I am stuck.

[mmaietta]

vue-cli-plugin-electron-builder uses an old version of electron-builder ("electron-builder version=22.14.13" in the CLI logs), please force an updated version of electron-builder via yarn resolutions or npm overrides

You can also get debug logs via DEBUG=electron-builder

I'd also recommend trying config buildDependenciesFromSource: true to see if that helps

[fb13]

Updated to newest electron-builder, but no effect of npmRebuild: false in config. I also tried buildDependenciesFromSource: true which does not have an impact, too.

FYI: I am calling "postinstall": "electron-builder install-app-deps" in my package.json. Doesnt the npmRebuild: false command disable this by config? What can happen if I leave "postinstall": "electron-builder install-app-deps" out?

[mmaietta]

npmRebuild doesn't disable electron-builder install-app-deps as the latter is using cmd line and directly executing npm rebuild, whereas the former is only used to the electron-builder packaging process.