[Windows] Path parts in strings replaced with undefined

[jamesplease]

OS: Windows 11
webpack-asset-relocator-loader version: 1.7.2
Node version: 16.15.0

Configuration

 {
    test: /\.(m?js|node)$/,
    parser: { amd: false },
    use: {
      loader: '@vercel/webpack-asset-relocator-loader',
      options: {
        outputAssetBase: 'native_modules',
      },
    },
  },

What is the behavior that I'm seeing

Any string containing paths to the project has that pieceof the string replaced with undefined.

What I would expect to see

Path parts not replaced with undefined.

Example

In this example, the project is located at C:\Users\example-user\web\example-project, and a file exists at .\src\some-path\some-file.txt

var path = 'C:\\Users\\example-user\\web\\example-project\\src\\some-path\\some-file.txt';
console.log(path);
// => undefinedsome-file.txt

More Information

This is an Electron Forge application. The problem has been narrowed down to this plugin (removing the plugin fixes the issue)

[TuringMachinegun]

I am observing the same problem on Windows 11, using Electron Forge. Same code works fine on Linux. I also tried with an older node version (14.19.2), and an older version of this repo (1.6.0), but no luck.

On my side, it seems like __webpack_require__.ab is left undefined in the generated code for requiring the native module:

/***/ "./src/<a subproject>/build/Release/<subproject_module>.node":
/*!***************************************************************************!*\
  !*** ./src/<a subproject>/build/Release/<subproject_module>.node ***!
  \***************************************************************************/
/***/ ((module, __unused_webpack_exports, __webpack_require__) => {

module.exports = require(__webpack_require__.ab + "<subproject_module>.node")

/***/ }),

If I manually substitute __webpack_require__.ab with the native_modules folder (in which the relocator correctly relocated the native module), it works again.

I'd be grateful for any workaround or suggestions, as the manual approach doesn't really map out when packaging for production, as webpack can't then apply its path substitution, and it seems like the relative path import trick I use in development doesn't work in the packaged file.

I'm also available to help tracing down this bug.

More info:

• I cloned this repo, ran the tests, and all of them pass.
• This issue is also possibly related, or at least shows the same symptoms: resolve intermittent failure to launch with development electron builds on Windows rstudio/rstudio#10694

[jamesplease]

This comment solved the problem for me:

electron/forge#575 (comment)

tl;dr: forge’s config can’t handle every type of native module. Some need to be marked as external.

If you try to get the code in that issue working it may work for you as well.

[TuringMachinegun]

Thanks @jamesplease, that did the trick. It only works in development mode though (for me), but using https://github.com/timfish/forge-externals-plugin solved that and now it also packages correctly.

[jamesplease]

I also had to add the externals plugin for builds. Glad you got it working!

[sibelius]

is there a workaround for this ?

[alfredomariamilano]

This is still an issue that should be easily fixable. I'm trying to debug where it all goes wrong.

[alfredomariamilano]

This is still an issue that should be easily fixable. I'm trying to debug where it all goes wrong.

I still cannot pinpoint exactly where the plugin is failing, but if I import a native node module in the webpack entry, instead of importing from another file, then the __webpack_require__.ab snippet is created.

EDIT: caching the webpack build results in the same error, which means it's a problem with checking if the file requesting the .node file is also the entry of webpack, since when caching, the entry would probably be different, from the cache.