Arch Linux User Repository

If you have troubles, read this message!

Please go to the relevant section of this comment in order to make both your and my life easier :)

1. Errors when starting the app like: the chat area is all blue
2. (Obsolete) I get an error when upgrading packages

Now, to the resolutions!

1. The app opens but I got a blue screen and nothing more / The app refuses to start / ...

The package depends on Node.js native stuff which are compiled at build time, which makes it break on Electron updates.

With a PKGBUILD between 2020-11-15 till 2021-09-08, you should always have gad a correct matching between Electron and Franz versions.

After 2021-09-08, while the Electron packages follows just the official Arch package dependency, as it is based on not-rolling versions (AKA following a specific Electron branch) breakages are unlikely.

If you would like to help me on this, whenever you have problems starting it, do the following:

1. Open Franz
2. Franz is broken: maybe for a recent update?
3. Reinstall Franz from AUR; this will make it rebuild the native blobs
4. Re-open Franz
5. Franz should work fine; if so, it was a Node.js/Electron/else update problem

If the above steps help you, report the package as outdated here and write in the comment something like:

Electron update broke Franz

If you have some other issues, you should open the developer tools and give me its output, in addition to what is your environment, so I can figure out if it is a packaging issue (my job to fix) or an upstream/code issue (their job to fix); in the second case, I will open a bug request and mention it in a comment, so that you can track it.

2. (Obsolete) I cannot upgrade Electron

The following resolution is not valid since 2021-09-08, it is kept for historic purposes

This is intended; since the PKGBUILD for Franz 5.5.0-4, the package marks as dependency a version-locked Electron package in order to avoid issues with binary modules over upgrades.

In such scenario, you should, assuming _electron="electron" in the PKGBUILD (meaning the Electron used is bundled in the package electron):

1. Mark this package as out of date
2. Do you regular updates with: pacman -Syu --ignore electron

If you want however to upgrade the Electron package, do

1. Upgrade the electron package with pacman -S --assume-installed electron=FRANZ.REQUIRED.VERSION electron
2. Rebuild Franz if needed

Hope this was a good explanation, might get updates if I missed something :)

@ThaChillera glad it finally works for you :)

@archieslove I think I might know the issue; can dig into it tonight. Can you give me the output of pacman -Qs electron ? Just to confirm my idea.

@ItachiSan Fixed, thanks for the hard work :)

Looks like there's a minor error.

sed: -e expression #1, char 34: unterminated `s' command ==> ERROR: A failure occurred in prepare(). Aborting...

@ThaChillera @nubzzz @Kabir and @wingsuit now it should work as intended; the version of Electron that is used during the build is the one installed locally and not the one online, which might be tracking unreleased builds. :)

@ThaChillera @nubzzz @Kabir and @wingsuit I had the blue screen issue previously; I found out there was an issue with the compilation of the Node.js binary modules as the desired upstream version and ArchLinux's version of Electron differ.

In order to solve that (at least on my side), I added the check for the Electron version in the PKGBUILD (see line 39).

I am not sure about building right now the package, as I was and still am busy (currently not at home); I hope/think I will have some more time with the incoming week and will make some tests building the package.

Same blue screen for me. No console messages.

Just installed the package, and I get the same blue screen. Tried running franz from the terminal but no error messages, just the blue screen.

@ThaChillera I get the same. Just installed with all the make dependencies and was left with a blue screen. Dev console shows the same as yours as well. Help us @ItachiSan you're our only hope :-P

Update: tried it with make dependencies, tried restarting pc, tried debugging: I have no ideas. @ItachiSan please help <3

Fresh install of Franz (never installed before), removed the make dependencies. When starting franz it only shows a blue screen, developer console gives an error. screenshot:

https://i.imgur.com/SRmh5Uj.png