Problems running the desktop client on Arch Linux

[joelostblom]

Hi,
I am having troubles installing the Riot desktop client on Arch Linux. I cloned the the git repo (latest, tag 0.9.3), navigated into the base directory and ran

npm install
npm install electron
node_modules/.bin/electron .

This launches a white empty window, titled Riot, and with a working menu bar. The following message is outputted to the console upon launching the window

No update_base_url is defined: auto update is disabled

I did not observe any error during the install, but there were some warnings. I don't have much experience with npm or electron, so I am looking for some help troubleshooting this.

The full installation message was

npm WARN deprecated minimatch@2.0.10: Please update to minimatch 3.0.2 or higher to avoid a RegExp DoS issue
npm WARN deprecated minimatch@0.3.0: Please update to minimatch 3.0.2 or higherto avoid a RegExp DoS issue
npm WARN deprecated to-iso-string@0.0.2: to-iso-string has been deprecated, use@segment/to-iso-string instead.
npm WARN deprecated jade@0.26.3: Jade has been renamed to pug, please install the latest version of pug instead of jade
npm WARN prefer global coffee-script@1.12.2 should be installed with -g
npm WARN prefer global marked@0.3.6 should be installed with -g

> phantomjs-prebuilt@2.1.14 install /home/joel/stuffandthings/others-packages/riot-web/node_modules/phantomjs-prebuilt
> node install.js

PhantomJS not found on PATH
Downloading https://github.com/Medium/phantomjs/releases/download/v2.1.1/phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
Saving to /tmp/phantomjs/phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
Receiving...
  [=======================================-] 99%
Received 22866K total.
Extracting tar contents (via spawned process)
Removing /home/joel/stuffandthings/others-packages/riot-web/node_modules/phantomjs-prebuilt/lib/phantom
Copying extracted folder /tmp/phantomjs/phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2-extract-1482423133539/phantomjs-2.1.1-linux-x86_64 -> /home/joel/stuffandthings/others-packages/riot-we
b/node_modules/phantomjs-prebuilt/lib/phantom
Writing location.js file
Done. Phantomjs binary available at /home/joel/stuffandthings/others-packages/riot-web/node_modules/phantomjs-prebuilt/lib/phantom/bin/phantomjs
npm WARN prepublish-on-install As of npm@5, `prepublish` scripts will run only for `npm publish`.
npm WARN prepublish-on-install (In npm@4 and previous versions, it also runs for `npm install`.)
npm WARN prepublish-on-install See the deprecation note in `npm help scripts` for more information.

> riot-web@0.9.3 prepublish /home/joel/stuffandthings/others-packages/riot-web
> npm run build:compile


> riot-web@0.9.3 build:compile /home/joel/stuffandthings/others-packages/riot-web
> babel --source-maps -d lib src

src/VectorConferenceHandler.js -> lib/VectorConferenceHandler.js
src/component-index.js -> lib/component-index.js
src/components/structures/BottomLeftMenu.js -> lib/components/structures/BottomLeftMenu.js
src/components/structures/CompatibilityPage.js -> lib/components/structures/CompatibilityPage.js
src/components/structures/LeftPanel.js -> lib/components/structures/LeftPanel.js
src/components/structures/RightPanel.js -> lib/components/structures/RightPanel.js
src/components/structures/RoomDirectory.js -> lib/components/structures/RoomDirectory.js
src/components/structures/RoomSubList.js -> lib/components/structures/RoomSubList.js
src/components/structures/SearchBox.js -> lib/components/structures/SearchBox.js
src/components/structures/ViewSource.js -> lib/components/structures/ViewSource.js
src/components/views/context_menus/MessageContextMenu.js -> lib/components/views/context_menus/MessageContextMenu.js
src/components/views/context_menus/NotificationStateContextMenu.js -> lib/components/views/context_menus/NotificationStateContextMenu.js
src/components/views/context_menus/RoomTagContextMenu.js -> lib/components/views/context_menus/RoomTagContextMenu.js
src/components/views/dialogs/ChangelogDialog.js -> lib/components/views/dialogs/ChangelogDialog.js
src/components/views/directory/NetworkDropdown.js -> lib/components/views/directory/NetworkDropdown.js
src/components/views/elements/ImageView.js -> lib/components/views/elements/ImageView.js
src/components/views/elements/Spinner.js -> lib/components/views/elements/Spinner.js
src/components/views/globals/GuestWarningBar.js -> lib/components/views/globals/GuestWarningBar.js
src/components/views/globals/MatrixToolbar.js -> lib/components/views/globals/MatrixToolbar.js
src/components/views/globals/NewVersionBar.js -> lib/components/views/globals/NewVersionBar.js
src/components/views/login/VectorCustomServerDialog.js -> lib/components/views/login/VectorCustomServerDialog.js
src/components/views/login/VectorLoginFooter.js -> lib/components/views/login/VectorLoginFooter.js
src/components/views/login/VectorLoginHeader.js -> lib/components/views/login/VectorLoginHeader.js
src/components/views/messages/DateSeparator.js -> lib/components/views/messages/DateSeparator.js
src/components/views/messages/MessageTimestamp.js -> lib/components/views/messages/MessageTimestamp.js
src/components/views/rooms/DNDRoomTile.js -> lib/components/views/rooms/DNDRoomTile.js
src/components/views/rooms/RoomDropTarget.js -> lib/components/views/rooms/RoomDropTarget.js
src/components/views/rooms/RoomTooltip.js -> lib/components/views/rooms/RoomTooltip.js
src/components/views/rooms/SearchBar.js -> lib/components/views/rooms/SearchBar.js
src/components/views/settings/IntegrationsManager.js -> lib/components/views/settings/IntegrationsManager.js
src/components/views/settings/Notifications.js -> lib/components/views/settings/Notifications.js
src/notifications/ContentRules.js -> lib/notifications/ContentRules.js
src/notifications/NotificationUtils.js -> lib/notifications/NotificationUtils.js
src/notifications/PushRuleVectorState.js -> lib/notifications/PushRuleVectorState.js
src/notifications/StandardActions.js -> lib/notifications/StandardActions.js
src/notifications/VectorPushRulesDefinitions.js -> lib/notifications/VectorPushRulesDefinitions.js
src/notifications/index.js -> lib/notifications/index.js
src/utils/DirectoryUtils.js -> lib/utils/DirectoryUtils.js
src/vector/index.js -> lib/vector/index.js
src/vector/modernizr.js -> lib/vector/modernizr.js
src/vector/olm-loader.js -> lib/vector/olm-loader.js
src/vector/platform/ElectronPlatform.js -> lib/vector/platform/ElectronPlatform.js
src/vector/platform/VectorBasePlatform.js -> lib/vector/platform/VectorBasePlatform.js
src/vector/platform/WebPlatform.js -> lib/vector/platform/WebPlatform.js
src/vector/platform/index.js -> lib/vector/platform/index.js
src/vector/updater.js -> lib/vector/updater.js
src/vector/url_utils.js -> lib/vector/url_utils.js
riot-web@0.9.3 /home/joel/stuffandthings/others-packages/riot-web

A long list of a file hierarchy followed and then a few more warnings in the end:

npm WARN optional SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: fsevents@^1.0.0 (node_modules/chokidar/node_modules/fsevents):
npm WARN notsup SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: Unsupported platform for fsevents@1.0.15: wanted {"os":"darwin","arch":"any"} (current: {"os":"linux","arch":"x64"})
npm WARN optional SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: 7zip-bin-mac@^1.0.1 (node_modules/7zip-bin/node_modules/7zip-bin-mac):
npm WARN notsup SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: Unsupported platform for 7zip-bin-mac@1.0.1: wanted {"os":"darwin","arch":"any"} (current: {"os":"linux","arch":"x64"})
npm WARN optional SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: 7zip-bin-win@^2.0.2 (node_modules/7zip-bin/node_modules/7zip-bin-win):
npm WARN notsup SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: Unsupported platform for 7zip-bin-win@2.0.2: wanted {"os":"win32","arch":"any"} (current: {"os":"linux","arch":"x64"})

I tried cloning and installing the 0.9.1-tag with the same result.

Further, I tried

sudo npm install nativefier -g
nativefier https://riot.im/app/

which also launches an empty window. This time without any menubar and terminal message.

Any ideas of how I could get the desktop client up and running?

In case it matters, I'm on kernel 4.8.12-2-ARCH, with Gnome 3.22.1 as the desktop environment.

[ara4n]

None of the log warnings etc look problematic; it feels more like your Electron is somehow broken. Can you upload the full build logs? Also, what version of electron did `npm install electron` install? (you can see from its package.json)

[joelostblom]

The electron version is 1.4.11. The entire package.json is pasted below.

Where are the build logs? I couldn't find anything relevantly names and changed recently in the same directory.

{
  "name": "riot-web",
  "productName": "Riot",
  "main": "electron/src/electron-main.js",
  "version": "0.9.3",
  "description": "A feature-rich client for Matrix.org",
  "author": "Vector Creations Ltd.",
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web"
  },
  "license": "Apache-2.0",
  "files": [
    "AUTHORS.rst",
    "CONTRIBUTING.rst",
    "deploy",
    "docs",
    "karma.conf.js",
    "lib",
    "release.sh",
    "scripts",
    "src",
    "test",
    "webpack.config.js"
  ],
  "style": "bundle.css",
  "matrix-react-parent": "matrix-react-sdk",
  "scripts": {
    "reskindex": "reskindex -h src/header",
    "build:res": "cpx \"{src/skins/vector/fonts,src/skins/vector/img}/**\" webapp/ && cpx \"{res/media,res/vector-icons}/**\" webapp/",
    "build:config": "cpx config.json webapp/",
    "build:emojione": "cpx \"node_modules/emojione/assets/svg/*\" webapp/emojione/svg/",
    "build:modernizr": "modernizr -c .modernizr.json -d src/vector/modernizr.js",
    "build:css": "mkdirp build && catw \"src/skins/vector/css/**/*.css\" -o build/components.css --no-watch",
    "build:compile": "babel --source-maps -d lib src",
    "build:bundle": "NODE_ENV=production webpack -p --progress",
    "build:bundle:dev": "webpack --optimize-occurence-order --progress",
    "build:electron": "npm run clean && npm run build && build -wml --ia32 --x64",
    "build": "node scripts/babelcheck.js && npm run build:res && npm run build:config && npm run build:emojione && npm run build:css && npm run build:bundle",
    "build:dev": "node scripts/babelcheck.js && npm run build:res && npm run build:config && npm run build:emojione && npm run build:css && npm run build:bundle:dev",
    "dist": "scripts/package.sh",
    "start:res": "parallelshell \"cpx -w \\\"{src/skins/vector/fonts,src/skins/vector/img}/**\\\" webapp/\" \"cpx -w \\\"{res/media,res/vector-icons}/**\\\" webapp/\"",
    "start:config": "cpx -w config.json webapp/",
    "start:emojione": "cpx \"node_modules/emojione/assets/svg/*\" webapp/emojione/svg/ -w",
    "start:js": "webpack-dev-server -w --progress",
    "start:js:prod": "NODE_ENV=production webpack-dev-server -w --progress",
    "start:skins:css": "mkdirp build && catw \"src/skins/vector/css/**/*.css\" -o build/components.css",
    "start": "node scripts/babelcheck.js && parallelshell \"npm run start:emojione\" \"npm run start:res\" \"npm run start:config\" \"npm run start:js\" \"npm run start:skins:css\"",
    "start:prod": "parallelshell \"npm run start:emojione\" \"npm run start:js:prod\" \"npm run start:skins:css\"",
    "clean": "rimraf build lib webapp electron/dist",
    "prepublish": "npm run build:compile",
    "test": "karma start --single-run=true --autoWatch=false --browsers PhantomJS --colors=false",
    "test:multi": "karma start"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "babel-polyfill": "^6.5.0",
    "babel-runtime": "^6.11.6",
    "browser-request": "^0.3.3",
    "classnames": "^2.1.2",
    "draft-js": "^0.8.1",
    "extract-text-webpack-plugin": "^0.9.1",
    "favico.js": "^0.3.10",
    "filesize": "^3.1.2",
    "flux": "~2.0.3",
    "gemini-scrollbar": "matrix-org/gemini-scrollbar#b302279",
    "gfm.css": "^1.1.1",
    "highlight.js": "^9.0.0",
    "linkifyjs": "^2.1.3",
    "matrix-js-sdk": "0.7.2",
    "matrix-react-sdk": "0.8.3",
    "modernizr": "^3.1.0",
    "q": "^1.4.1",
    "react": "^15.4.0",
    "react-dnd": "^2.1.4",
    "react-dnd-html5-backend": "^2.1.2",
    "react-dom": "^15.4.0",
    "react-gemini-scrollbar": "matrix-org/react-gemini-scrollbar#5e97aef",
    "sanitize-html": "^1.11.1",
    "ua-parser-js": "^0.7.10",
    "url": "^0.11.0"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "babel-cli": "^6.5.2",
    "babel-core": "^6.14.0",
    "babel-eslint": "^6.1.0",
    "babel-loader": "^6.2.5",
    "babel-plugin-add-module-exports": "^0.2.1",
    "babel-plugin-transform-async-to-generator": "^6.16.0",
    "babel-plugin-transform-class-properties": "^6.16.0",
    "babel-plugin-transform-object-rest-spread": "^6.16.0",
    "babel-plugin-transform-runtime": "^6.15.0",
    "babel-preset-es2015": "^6.16.0",
    "babel-preset-es2016": "^6.16.0",
    "babel-preset-es2017": "^6.16.0",
    "babel-preset-react": "^6.16.0",
    "babel-preset-stage-2": "^6.17.0",
    "catw": "^1.0.1",
    "cpx": "^1.3.2",
    "css-raw-loader": "^0.1.1",
    "electron-builder": "^10.4.1",
    "emojione": "^2.2.3",
    "expect": "^1.16.0",
    "fs-extra": "^0.30.0",
    "html-webpack-plugin": "^2.24.0",
    "json-loader": "^0.5.3",
    "karma": "^0.13.22",
    "karma-chrome-launcher": "^0.2.3",
    "karma-cli": "^0.1.2",
    "karma-junit-reporter": "^0.4.1",
    "karma-mocha": "^0.2.2",
    "karma-phantomjs-launcher": "^1.0.0",
    "karma-sourcemap-loader": "^0.3.7",
    "karma-webpack": "^1.7.0",
    "mkdirp": "^0.5.1",
    "mocha": "^2.4.5",
    "parallelshell": "^1.2.0",
    "phantomjs-prebuilt": "^2.1.7",
    "react-addons-perf": "^15.4.0",
    "react-addons-test-utils": "^15.4.0",
    "rimraf": "^2.4.3",
    "source-map-loader": "^0.1.5",
    "webpack": "^1.12.14",
    "webpack-dev-server": "^1.16.2"
  },
  "optionalDependencies": {
    "olm": "https://matrix.org/packages/npm/olm/olm-2.0.0.tgz"
  },
  "build": {
    "appId": "im.riot.app",
    "category": "Network",
    "electronVersion": "1.4.11",
    "//asar=false": "https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/issues/675",
    "asar": false,
    "dereference": true,
    "//files": "We bundle everything, so we only need to include webapp/",
    "files": [
      "electron/src/**",
      "electron/img/**",
      "webapp/**",
      "package.json"
    ],
    "linux": {
      "target": "deb",
      "maintainer": "support@riot.im"
    },
    "win": {
      "target": "squirrel"
    }
  },
  "directories": {
    "buildResources": "electron/build",
    "output": "electron/dist"
  }
}

[z3ntu]

npm run build is necessary for it to run. It just has to be added to the build instructions

[joelostblom]

Great, thanks!
After running npm run build, I can launch the application with node_modules/.bin/electron .. I still see the same message about the missing base_url printed in terminal, but everything seems to be working fine.

Maybe this step should be added to the desktop install instructions in the README? Or is it implicit that you always have to do this when using npm?

[z3ntu]

It's just plain missing because I had the same problem (and only found something with webroot in the packages.json which had something with build:xxx there