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If the above steps help you, report the package as outdated here and write in the comment something like: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 Mark this package as out of date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 :)

Adressing @ilpanich's issue, apparently it's a lerna issue but I'm still getting an error using yarn install:

0 info it worked if it ends with ok
1 verbose cli [
1 verbose cli   '/usr/bin/node',
1 verbose cli   '/home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/franz/node_modules/.bin/npm',
1 verbose cli   'run',
1 verbose cli   'prepare'
1 verbose cli ]
2 info using npm@6.14.8
3 info using node@v14.16.0
4 verbose run-script [ 'prepare' ]
5 info lifecycle @meetfranz/theme@1.0.14~prepare: @meetfranz/theme@1.0.14
6 verbose lifecycle @meetfranz/theme@1.0.14~prepare: unsafe-perm in lifecycle true
7 verbose lifecycle @meetfranz/theme@1.0.14~prepare: PATH: /home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/franz/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/node-gyp-bin:/home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/franz/packages/theme/node_modules/.bin:/home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/franz/packages/theme/node_modules/.bin:/home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/franz/packages/node_modules/.bin:/home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/franz/node_modules/.bin:/home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/node_modules/.bin:/home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/node_modules/.bin:/home/isinyaaa/repos/node_modules/.bin:/home/isinyaaa/node_modules/.bin:/home/node_modules/.bin:/node_modules/.bin:/usr/bin:/home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/franz/node_modules/.bin:/tmp/yarn--1619378240150-0.7756462395087405:/home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/franz/node_modules/.bin:/home/isinyaaa/.config/yarn/link/node_modules/.bin:/home/isinyaaa/.yarn/bin:/usr/libexec/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/node-gyp-bin:/usr/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/node-gyp-bin:/usr/bin/node_modules/npm/bin/node-gyp-bin:/usr/bin/tizonia:/usr/bin/tizonia:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/bin/site_perl:/usr/bin/vendor_perl:/usr/bin/core_perl:/home/isinyaaa/bin:/home/isinyaaa/.local/bin/:/home/isinyaaa/bin:/home/isinyaaa/.local/bin/
8 verbose lifecycle @meetfranz/theme@1.0.14~prepare: CWD: /home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/franz/packages/theme
9 silly lifecycle @meetfranz/theme@1.0.14~prepare: Args: [ '-c', 'tsc' ]
10 silly lifecycle @meetfranz/theme@1.0.14~prepare: Returned: code: 1  signal: null
11 info lifecycle @meetfranz/theme@1.0.14~prepare: Failed to exec prepare script
12 verbose stack Error: @meetfranz/theme@1.0.14 prepare: `tsc`
12 verbose stack Exit status 1
12 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.<anonymous> (/home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/franz/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/index.js:332:16)
12 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:315:20)
12 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/franz/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/lib/spawn.js:55:14)
12 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:315:20)
12 verbose stack     at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:1048:16)
12 verbose stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:288:5)
13 verbose pkgid @meetfranz/theme@1.0.14
14 verbose cwd /home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/franz/packages/theme
15 verbose Linux 5.11.16-arch1-1
16 verbose argv "/usr/bin/node" "/home/isinyaaa/repos/franz/src/franz/node_modules/.bin/npm" "run" "prepare"
17 verbose node v14.16.0
18 verbose npm  v6.14.8
19 error code ELIFECYCLE
20 error errno 1
21 error @meetfranz/theme@1.0.14 prepare: `tsc`
21 error Exit status 1
22 error Failed at the @meetfranz/theme@1.0.14 prepare script.
22 error This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
23 verbose exit [ 1, true ]

Hi all,

Sorry for the long absence & silence, but life was super busy.

I am digging in the last build error reported from @ilpanich and found multiple weird issues.

First of all, dependencies do not install in the way they are supposed to. When adjusting the broken dependencies, the build fails. Running it in the directory manually however seems to work.

Lots of weird issues, will slowly investigate during the next days.

Hi. Can't build on my system...

--> Using Electron package: electron

lerna ERR! npm install exited 1 in 'franz'

When running pacman update tonight I am getting the following error:

:: Synchronising package databases...
 core is up to date
 extra is up to date
 community is up to date
:: Starting full system upgrade...
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...
error: failed to prepare transaction (could not satisfy dependencies)
:: installing electron (11.2.0-1) breaks dependency 'electron=11.1.1' required by franz

Edit: Fixed on 2021-01-14 by reinstalling the latest version of franz

I'm getting this warning: gyp ERR! configure error gyp ERR! stack Error: Command failed: /usr/bin/python -c import sys; print "%s.%s.%s" % sys.version_info[:3]; gyp ERR! stack File "<string>", line 1 gyp ERR! stack import sys; print "%s.%s.%s" % sys.version_info[:3]; gyp ERR! stack ^ gyp ERR! stack SyntaxError: invalid syntax gyp ERR! stack gyp ERR! stack at ChildProcess.exithandler (node:child_process:309:12) gyp ERR! stack at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:327:20) gyp ERR! stack at maybeClose (node:internal/child_process:1055:16) gyp ERR! stack at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:288:5)

I guess we need to patch to use python3 somewhere?

@dnl_tp master has lots of stuff that are not included in the real release. However, due to how new is our Electron, we might want to use the latest beta... Lemme think about that :)

Franz has stopped working for me so I changed the PKGBUILD to use the master branch and removed the now outdated electron-9.patch, then it worked well again!

There is an electron 9 branch with some more patches:
https://github.com/meetfranz/franz/tree/chore/electron-9.x

I installed a fresh Manjaro Gnome then installed Franz the current version 1:5.5.0-3 and I have a small issue as I go to settings, enable the dark mode and disable displaying disabled services tabs but when I refresh or quiet the app then open it again these settings reset themselves I have to re-enable them again every time I start the app for the first time or refresh.