Firefox unloads modules loaded with Components.utils.import()? - firefox

When leaving Firefox running for some time the strange thing begin to happen with my extension. Here's some code, that I need to describe the problem:
extension.js
var My = {};
overlay.js
Components.utils.import("resource://myextension/extension.js");
My.extension = (function() {
var someFunc = function() {
// more code
My.module.otherFunc();
};
// more code
})();
At some point we start getting the strange error: 'My' is undefined in overlay.js:6
My guess is that Firefox unloads extension.js module silently, otherwise I couldn't find any hint why this may happen. Do you?
Firefox version: 3.x
Thanks!

While you can pass functions to modules as temporary callbacks, you should take steps to ensure that they are not used after the window is closed, because then all its global variables, including My, are deleted. If the module subsequently tries to call the function then you will get the error as described.

Related

Library not loaded before `doJavaScript` when not main request

I'm trying to delay the construction of every 'page' (i.e. a Wt::WWidget inside my global Wt::WStackedWidget), until it is needed. Therefore I'm using a method similar to the DeferredWidget of the Widget Gallery example of Wt.
However, when I load a library using require, the execution of javascript code is not delayed until the library is loaded, when the content is not loaded with the first request (f.ex. inside WWidget::load()), i.e. running the following code
wApp->require("myLibrary.js"); // defines function MyFunction ();
doJavaScript ("MyFunction ();");
runs without error when it is requested on the first loaded page, but when the content is loaded after a user event, the following javascript error occurs:
MyFunction is not defined
Question: How should I overcome this error or how should I correctly delay the loading of my (large) javascript library until needed?
Further research
Inspecting the source code of WebRenderer::collectJS:
Javascript updates seems to be performed before loading new libraries:
// Executing javascript updates, including doJavaScript calls.
for (unsigned i = 0; i < changes.size(); ++i) {
changes[i]->asJavaScript(sout, DomElement::Priority::Update);
delete changes[i];
}
...
// Loading new libraries.
int librariesLoaded = loadScriptLibraries(*js, app);
Shouldn't the javascript update being delayed until the new libraries are loaded?
Further research - Part 2
Executing javascript code (which may depend on required libraries) is delayed at two different places, i.e. inside
WebRenderer::collectJavaScript: delays execution of all javascript code (including invisible changes) until all old required libraries (excluding newly required libraries f.ex. inside WWidget::load) are loaded.
WebRenderer::collectJS: delays execution of some javascript code until all required libraries (including newly required libraries f.ex. inside WWidget::load) are loaded.
I am not sure with the javascript scriploader behavior. But in my wt experience i make it append in this way.
1) My javascript library is load in my main page at start with require.
2) If i need later some new function, i write it in my script string like this :
string javacode = "function MyTest ( ) { "
"alert('test') ; }"
"MyTest();"
doJavaScript ( javacode ) ;
If you want load some javascript file and run some function after it is load you schould make the require in the contructor of your container class.
Then you derived the function bool Wt::WCompositeWidget::loaded()
and put in this function your dojavaScript...

Tips on solving 'DevTools was disconnected from the page' and Electron Helper dies

I've a problem with Electron where the app goes blank. i.e. It becomes a white screen. If I open the dev tools it displays the following message.
In ActivityMonitor I can see the number of Electron Helper processes drops from 3 to 2 when this happens. Plus it seems I'm not the only person to come across it. e.g.
Facing "Devtools was disconnected from the page. Once page is reloaded, Devtools will automatically reconnect."
Electron dying without any information, what now?
But I've yet to find an answer that helps. In scenarios where Electron crashes are there any good approaches to identifying the problem?
For context I'm loading an sdk into Electron. Originally I was using browserify to package it which worked fine. But I want to move to the SDKs npm release. This version seems to have introduced the problem (though the code should be the same).
A good bit of time has passed since I originally posted this question. I'll answer it myself in case my mistake can assist anyone.
I never got a "solution" to the original problem. At a much later date I switched across to the npm release of the sdk and it worked.
But before that time I'd hit this issue again. Luckily, by then, I'd added a logger that also wrote console to file. With it I noticed that a JavaScript syntax error caused the crash. e.g. Missing closing bracket, etc.
I suspect that's what caused my original problem. But the Chrome dev tools do the worst thing by blanking the console rather than preserve it when the tools crash.
Code I used to setup a logger
/*global window */
const winston = require('winston');
const prettyMs = require('pretty-ms');
/**
* Proxy the standard 'console' object and redirect it toward a logger.
*/
class Logger {
constructor() {
// Retain a reference to the original console
this.originalConsole = window.console;
this.timers = new Map([]);
// Configure a logger
this.logger = winston.createLogger({
level: 'info',
format: winston.format.combine(
winston.format.timestamp(),
winston.format.printf(({ level, message, timestamp }) => {
return `${timestamp} ${level}: ${message}`;
})
),
transports: [
new winston.transports.File(
{
filename: `${require('electron').remote.app.getPath('userData')}/logs/downloader.log`, // Note: require('electron').remote is undefined when I include it in the normal imports
handleExceptions: true, // Log unhandled exceptions
maxsize: 1048576, // 10 MB
maxFiles: 10
}
)
]
});
const _this = this;
// Switch out the console with a proxied version
window.console = new Proxy(this.originalConsole, {
// Override the console functions
get(target, property) {
// Leverage the identical logger functions
if (['debug', 'info', 'warn', 'error'].includes(property)) return (...parameters) => {
_this.logger[property](parameters);
// Simple approach to logging to console. Initially considered
// using a custom logger. But this is much easier to implement.
// Downside is that the format differs but I can live with that
_this.originalConsole[property](...parameters);
}
// The log function differs in logger so map it to info
if ('log' === property) return (...parameters) => {
_this.logger.info(parameters);
_this.originalConsole.info(...parameters);
}
// Re-implement the time and timeEnd functions
if ('time' === property) return (label) => _this.timers.set(label, window.performance.now());
if ('timeEnd' === property) return (label) => {
const now = window.performance.now();
if (!_this.timers.has(label)) {
_this.logger.warn(`console.timeEnd('${label}') called without preceding console.time('${label}')! Or console.timeEnd('${label}') has been called more than once.`)
}
const timeTaken = prettyMs(now - _this.timers.get(label));
_this.timers.delete(label);
const message = `${label} ${timeTaken}`;
_this.logger.info(message);
_this.originalConsole.info(message);
}
// Any non-overriden functions are passed to console
return target[property];
}
});
}
}
/**
* Calling this function switches the window.console for a proxied version.
* The proxy allows us to redirect the call to a logger.
*/
function switchConsoleToLogger() { new Logger(); } // eslint-disable-line no-unused-vars
Then in index.html I load this script first
<script src="js/logger.js"></script>
<script>switchConsoleToLogger()</script>
I had installed Google Chrome version 79.0.3945.130 (64 bit). My app was going to crash every time when I was in debug mode. I try all the solutions I found on the web but no one was useful. I downgrade to all the previous version:
78.x Crashed
77.x Crashed
75.x Not Crashed
I had to re-install the version 75.0.3770.80 (64 bit). Problem has been solved. It can be a new versions of Chrome problem. I sent feedback to Chrome assistence.
My problem was that I was not loading a page such as index.html. Once I loaded problem went away.
parentWindow = new BrowserWindow({
title: 'parent'
});
parentWindow.loadURL(`file://${__dirname}/index.html`);
parentWindow.webContents.openDevTools();
The trick to debugging a crash like this, is to enable logging, which is apparently disabled by default. This is done by setting the environment variable ELECTRON_ENABLE_LOGGING=1, as mentioned in this GitHub issue.
With that enabled, you should see something along the lines of this in the console:
You can download Google Chrome Canary. I was facing this problem on Google Chrome where DevTools was crashing every time on the same spot. On Chrome Canary the debugger doesn't crash.
I also faced the exact same problem
I was trying to require sqlite3 module from renderer side
which was causing a problem but once i removed the request it was working just fine
const {app , BrowserWindow , ipcMain, ipcRenderer } = require('electron')
const { event } = require('jquery')
const sqlite3 = require('sqlite3').verbose(); // <<== problem
I think the best way to solve this (if your code is really really small) just try to remove functions and run it over and over again eventually you can narrow it down to the core problem
It is a really tedious , dumb and not a smart way of doing it , but hey it worked
I encountered this issue, and couldn't figure out why the the DevTool was constantly disconnecting. So on a whim I launched Firefox Developer edition and identified the cause as an undefined variable with a string length property.
if ( args.length > 1 ) {
$( this ).find( "option" ).each(function () {
$( $( this ).attr( "s-group" ) ).hide();
});
$( args ).show();
}
TL;DR Firefox Developer edition can identify these kinds of problems when Chrome's DevTool fails.
After reading the comments above it is clear to me that there is a problem at least in Chrome that consists of not showing any indication of what the fault comes from. In Firefox, the program works but with a long delay.
But, as Shane Gannon said, the origin of the problem is certainly not in a browser but it is in the code: in my case, I had opened a while loop without adding the corresponding incremental, which made the loop infinite. As in the example below:
var a = 0;
while (a < 10) {
...
a ++ // this is the part I was missing;
}
Once this was corrected, the problem disappeared.
I found that upgrading to
react 17.0.2
react-dom 17.0.2
react-scripts 4.0.3
but also as react-scripts start is being used to run electron maybe its just react scripts that needs updating.
Well I nearly went crazy but with electron the main problem I realized I commented out the code to fetch (index.html)
// and load the index.html of the app.
mainWindow.loadFile('index.html');
check this side and make sure you have included it. without this the page will go black or wont load. so check your index.js to see if there's something to load your index.html file :) feel free to mail : profnird#gmail.com if you need additional help
Downgrade from Electron 11 to Electron 8.2 worked for me in Angular 11 - Electron - Typeorm -sqlite3 app.
It is not a solution as such, but it is an assumption of why the problem.
In the angular 'ngOnInit' lifecycle I put too many 'for' and 'while' loops, one inside the other, after cleaning the code and making it more compact, the problem disappeared, I think maybe because it didn't finish the processes within a time limit I hope someone finds this comment helpful. :)
I have stumbled upon the similar problem, My approach is comment out some line that I just added to see if it works. And if that is the case, those problem is at those lines of code.
for(var i = 0;i<objLen; i+3 ){
input_data.push(jsonObj[i].reading2);
input_label.push(jsonObj[i].dateTime);
}
The console works fine after i change the code to like this.
for(var i = 0;i<objLen; i=i+space ){
input_data.push(jsonObj[i].reading2);
input_label.push(jsonObj[i].dateTime);
}
Open your google dev console (Ctrl + shift + i). Then press (fn + F1) or just F1, then scroll down and click on the Restore defaults and reload.

Creating a simple, basic page object in Nightwatch.js

Ok, so I've read up on the use of page_objects in nightwatch.js, but I'm still getting issues with it (which I'm convinced is due to something obvious and/or simple).
Using http://nightwatchjs.org/guide/#page-objects as the guide, I added the the file cookieremoval.js in my page_objects folder.
module.exports = {
elements: {
removeCookies: {
selector: '.banner_continue--2NyXA'
}
}
}
In my nightwatch.conf.js file I have;
page_objects_path: "tests/functional/config/page_objects",
And in my test script I have;
module.exports = {
"/cars/road-tax redirects to /car-tax/ ": browser => {
browser.url(browser.launch_url + browser.globals.carReviews)
.assert.urlEquals(browser.launchUrl + "/car-reviews/")
.waitForElementPresent('#cookieRemove', 3000)
.click('#cookieRemove')
.end();
},
};
However, when I run the test, I keep getting an error reading;
Timed out while waiting for element <#cookieRemove>
Any ideas why this is not working?
Many thanks
First of all, you never instantiated your page object. You're asking the browser object to search for an unknown element, that's why it's timing out. Your code should look something like this in your test script: var cookieRemoval = browser.page.cookieremoval(); then use this object to access those variables and functions in your page object. For example, if you wanted to access the remove cookie element, then you would do this cookieRemoval.click('#removeCookies');.
Secondly, you will have to know when to use the global browser object and when to use your page object. If you need to access something within your page object, obviously use the page object to call a function or access a variable. Otherwise, browser won't know the element you're looking for exists. Hope this help you out, I would definitely spend some more time learning about objects and specifically how they're used in nightwatch.js.

Laravel Webpack - Unwanted minification of top level variable

I have a variable in my main javascript file e.g. var example = {};.
After webpack has finished its job, I find that example is now referenced as t. This presents me a problem as I am using the variable across the web project. I bind functions onto objects for example:
var example = {};
example.initialise = function () {};
Finally at the bottom of a page I may invoke this section of script e.g:
<script>example.initialise()</script>
This way of writing javascript functions is not unusual...
This is obviously a huge pain in the ass as I have no control over the minification. Moreover, it appears that webpack doesn't figure out that example.initialise = function () {}; relates to its newly minified var example (becoming)--> var t. I.e. it doesn't become t.initialise = function {}; either.
What am I supposed to do here?
I've tried using rollup as well. The same kind of variable minification happens.
The thing is, this kind of minification/obfuscation is great, particularly on the inner workings of functions where there's little cause for concern over the parameter names. But not on the top level. I do not understand why this is happening, or how to prevent it.
Any ideas?
I assume that there are ways to set the configuration of webpack. E.g. inside webpack.config.js, but my perusing of the webpack docs gives me no easy understanding of what options I can use to resolve this, like preventing property minification in some way.
In laravel-elixir-webpack-official code you can see minify() is being applied here, minify() uses UglifyJS2 and mangling is on by default.
Mangling is an optimisation that reduces names of local variables and functions usually to single-letters (this explains your example object being renamed to t). See the doc here.
I don't see any way you can customize minify() behaviour in laravel-elixir-webpack, so for now you might have to monkey patch WebpackTask.prototype.gulpTask method before using the module (not an ideal solution). See the lines I am commenting out.
const WebpackTask = require('laravel-elixir-webpack-official/dist/WebpackTask').default;
WebpackTask.prototype.gulpTask = function () {
return (
gulp
.src(this.src.path)
.pipe(this.webpack())
.on('error', this.onError())
// .pipe(jsFiles)
// .pipe(this.minify())
// .on('error', this.onError())
// .pipe(jsFiles.restore)
.pipe(this.saveAs(gulp))
.pipe(this.onSuccess())
);
};
Turns out I have been silly. I've discovered that you can prevent top level properties from being minified by binding it to window... which in hindsight is something I've always known and was stupid not to have realised sooner. D'oh!
So all that needed to be done was to change all top-level properties like var example = {}; to something like window.app.example = {}; in which app is helping to namespace and prevent and override anything set by the language itself.

Prevent re-loading of javascript if functions already exist. Otherwise ensure synchronous loading

Using JQuery.load(), I change the content of my website's mainWindow to allow the user to switch between tabs. For each tab, there is one or multiple scipts that contain functions that are executed once the tab content is loaded.
Obviously when switching to the tab for the first time, the script has to be fetched from the server and interpreted, but this shouldn't happen if the user switches back to the tab later on. So, to put it short:
Load() html
make sure javascript functions exist, otherwise load script and interpret it.
call a a function on the javascript after the DOM is rebuilt.
Step one and two have to be complete before step 3 is performed.
At the moment, I am using nested callbacks to realize this:
function openFirstTab(){
$("#mainWindow").load("firstTab.php", function(){
if(typeof(onloadfFirstTab) != "function"){
jQuery.getScript("assets/js/FirstTab.js", function(){
onloadFirstTab();
});
}
else{
onloadFirstTab();
}
} );
}
but I feel that there should be a better way.
You can't write the code entirely synchronously since you can't load script synchronously after page load ( unless you do a synchronous XHR request and eval the results - not recommended ).
You've got a couple of choices. There are pre-existing dependency management libs like RequireJS which may fit the bill here, or if you just need to load a single file you can do something like this to clean up your code a bit rather than using if/else:
function loadDependencies() {
// For the sake of example, the script adds "superplugin" to the jQuery prototype
return $.getScript( "http://mysite.com/jquery.superplugin.js" );
}
function action() {
// If superplugin hasn't been loaded yet, then load it
$.when( jQuery.fn.superplugin || loadDependencies() ).done(function() {
// Your dependencies are loaded now
});
}
This makes use of jQuery Deferreds/Promises to make the code much nicer.
If you don't want to load the JS more than once and you are going to dynamically load it, then the only way to know whether it's already loaded is to test for some condition that indicates it has already been loaded. The choices I'm aware of are:
The simplest I know of is what you are already doing (check for the existence of a function that is defined in the javascript).
You could also use a property on each tab (using jQuery's .data() that you set to true after you load the script.
You could write the dynamically loaded code so that it knows how to avoid re-initializing itself if it has already been loaded. In that case, you just load it each time, but the successive times don't do anything. Hint, you can't have any statically defined globals and you have to test if it's already been loaded before it runs its own initialization code.
(Haven't tested it yet, so I am not sure if it works, especially since I didn't yet really understand scope in javascript:)
function require(scripts, callback){
var loadCount = 0;
function done(){
loadCount -=1;
if (loadCount==0){
callback();
}
}
for ( var script in scripts){
if (!script.exitsts()){
loadCount +=1;
jQuery.getScript(script.url, done);
}
}
}
This function takes an array of scripts that are required and makes sure all of them are interpreted before it calls the callback().
The "script" class:
function script(url, testFunc){
this.url =url;
this.testFunction = testFunc;
this.exists = function(){
if(typeof(testFunction)=="function"){
return true;
}
else{
return false;
}
}
}
Where the test-function is a function that is defined (only) in the concerned script.
PS:
To enable caching in JQuery and thus prevent the browser from doing a GET request every time getScript() is called, you can use one of the methods that are presented here.
Even though unnecessary GET - requests are avoided, the script is still getting interpreted every time getScript() is called. This might sometimes be the desired behavior. But in many cases, there is no need to re-interpret library functions. In these cases it makes sense to avoid calling getScript() if the required library functions are already available. (As it is done in this example with script.exists().

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