Compiling Windows .exe stuck on compiling app.nsi about appjs-deskshell HOT 12 OPEN

Normally this is caused by the icon file not being found. The app.nsi script points to an .ico file, if for any reason that path is incorrect or icon file is missing then it just dies silently. This has been a problem for a while and I really need to fix better error handling and logging.

Until there is better support try http://nsis.sourceforge.net/ and you can download a portable edition of NSIS or there is even an IDE "HM NIS Edit" you can download. Then open the .nsi file and compile it and see what the error is.

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A quicker option is to actually just run Deskshell\sys-apps\win-exe-compiler\NSIS\NSIS.exe then click on "Compile NSI scripts" and you get a little editor.

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Thanks for your replies so far. The nsi script is looking for a folder called "deploy" parallel to htdocs. It couldn't find this so it failed.

I have manually created the deploy folder to allow the process to complete.

This creates a .exe file called sshlaunch. When I try to use this a blank window briefly appears and then closes.

The deskshell.log file says:

UncaughtException:start must be <= endstart must be <= end

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Try downloading http://deskshell.org/downloads/portable-hello-world.zip. This has a particular layout and structure and includes an app.nsi file and hopefully should compile and create an .exe for you. Then compare that to your application (http://winmerge.org/ is excellent for this kind of job). I am guessing that something is missing or is named wrongly and that therefore deskshell is not starting up properly -- sounds to me like the file it is reading is blank or something like that.

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Ah another thing I have thought of is that the first time you run the wizard it creates a new app.nsi for you automatically with the correct settings. However after that it just leaves the previous app.nsi as it was. Try renaming that file and re-run the wizard, maybe a new file will solve the problem.

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Using the portable hello world I tried to create a new .exe using MakeNSISW.

There are two warnings:

2 warnings:
Generating version information for language "0000-English" without standard key "LegalCopyright"
install function "InstallRuntime" not referenced - zeroing code (48-79) out

The app.exe is created but it results in the same error log:

UncaughtException:start must be <= endstart must be <= end

I have not changed any of the content in the Portable Hello World example just simply ran the nsi script.

I've tried renaming the app.nsi file and creating a brand new application with a separate run of the wizard. Still the same error code.

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Ok, thanks for the good error description. Sounds to me like I need to add better debug errors. Not sure if german language is missing but I dont think that should cause problems. This is just a simple launcher but we have had problems before. I cannot look now but will investigate and try to improve the compiler for you.

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Thanks very much. This looks to be a great project and I really appreciate your quick responses.

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Hi sihorton,

I seem to be having the same issues as above. I've got to the point where I get the "UncaughtException:start must be <= endstart must be <= end" error on lunching the exe.

Is this still an issue 10 months on?

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Yes I can confirm the issue is still standing.

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there are some references to "D:\dev\appjs-deskshell\bin\win\deskshell.js" which is your wroking directory I would assume. But other then that I still can't find what the hell is wrong with it.

Quick update: seems like gyp doesn't work with 3.x python, trying with 2.7.3 let's see what goes.

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I got a little further with this issue. I am using NSIS to compile the nsi script and get the error:
"UncaughtException:start must be <= endstart must be <= end" as reported above.

While debugging I found that you need to call the .desk file app.desk, and not portable-hello-world.desk or whatever you application is. With this I no longer see the "UncaughtException:start must be <= endstart must be <= end" error and the installer starts to install. However when it gets to downloading deskshell I get an error saying:

"Error when downloading http://deskshell.org/?downloading=WindowsUpdateInstall. please try again later"

Regards,
TC.

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