Cannot run desktop-example-app

Questions / Help
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1

Background

I am trying to run the demo app desktop-example-app showed in Elixir Berlin meetup February 2021:

I have followed all the necessary setup steps from the installation guide for Ubuntu:

sudo apt install inotify-tools libtool automake libgmp-dev make libwxgtk-webview3.0-gtk3-dev libssl-dev libncurses5-dev curl git

sudo apt install libjpeg-dev libpng-dev libtiff-dev zlib1g-dev libncurses5-dev libssh-dev unixodbc-dev libgmp3-dev libwxbase3.0-dev libwxgtk3.0-gtk3-dev libwxgtk-webview3.0-gtk3-dev libsctp-dev lksctp-tools build-essential libgtk-3-dev libnotify-dev libsecret-1-dev catch

mkdir ~/projects && cd ~/projects
git clone https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets.git
cd wxWidgets; 
git checkout v3.1.5
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/wxWidgets --enable-clipboard --enable-controls \
      --enable-dataviewctrl --enable-display \
      --enable-dnd --enable-graphics_ctx \
      --enable-std_string --enable-svg \
      --enable-unicode --enable-webview \
      --with-expat --with-libjpeg \
      --with-libpng --with-libtiff \
      --with-opengl --with-zlib \
      --disable-precomp-headers --disable-monolithic

make -j4

And I have the rest of the dependencies installed via asdf in the project:

erlang 24.0
elixir 1.12.2-otp-24
sqlite 3.36.0
nodejs 12.16.1

Problem

The installation went without any issues as far as I can tell. However, when I execute the script ./run to launch the application, I get the following error:

error] Process #PID<0.383.0> terminating
** (exit) {:bad_return, {{TodoApp, :start, [:normal, []]}, {:EXIT, {{:badmatch, {:error, {{:EXIT, {{:badmatch, {:error, {{:undefined_function, {:wxWebView, :new, 0}}, [{:wxe_util, :rec, 1, [file: 'wxe_util.erl', line: 110]}, {Desktop.Fallback, :webview_new, 1, [file: 'lib/desktop/fallback.ex', line: 88]}, {Desktop.Window, :init, 1, [file: 'lib/desktop/window.ex', line: 175]}, {:wx_object, :init_it, 6, [file: 'wx_object.erl', line: 404]}, {:proc_lib, :init_p_do_apply, 3, [file: 'proc_lib.erl', line: 226]}]}}}, [{Desktop.Window, :start_link, 1, [file: 'lib/desktop/window.ex', line: 103]}, {:supervisor, :do_start_child_i, 3, [file: 'supervisor.erl', line: 414]}, {:supervisor, :do_start_child, 2, [file: 'supervisor.erl', line: 400]}, {:supervisor, :handle_start_child, 2, [file: 'supervisor.erl', line: 706]}, {:supervisor, :handle_call, 3, [file: 'supervisor.erl', line: 455]}, {:gen_server, :try_handle_call, 4, [file: 'gen_server.erl', line: 721]}, {:gen_server, :handle_msg, 6, [file: 'gen_server.erl', line: 750]}, {:proc_lib, :init_p_do_apply, 3, [file: 'proc_lib.erl', line: 226]}]}}, {:child, :undefined, TodoWindow, {Desktop.Window, :start_link, [[app: :todo_app, id: TodoWindow, title: "TodoApp", size: {600, 500}, icon: "icon.png", menubar: TodoApp.MenuBar, icon_menu: TodoApp.Menu, url: &TodoWeb.Endpoint.url/0, app: :todo_app, id: TodoWindow]]}, :permanent, false, 5000, :worker, [Desktop.Window]}}}}, [{TodoApp, :start, 2, [file: 'lib/todo_app.ex', line: 24]}, {:application_master, :start_it_old, 4, [file: 'application_master.erl', line: 293]}]}}}}
    (kernel 8.0) application_master.erl:142: :application_master.init/4
    (stdlib 3.15) proc_lib.erl:226: :proc_lib.init_p_do_apply/3
Initial Call: :application_master.init/4
Ancestors: [#PID<0.382.0>]
Message Queue Length: 1
Messages: [{:EXIT, #PID<0.384.0>, :normal}]
Links: [#PID<0.382.0>, #PID<0.44.0>]
Dictionary: []
Trapping Exits: true
Status: :running
Heap Size: 1598
Stack Size: 29
Reductions: 252
** (Mix) Could not start application todo_app: exited in: TodoApp.start(:normal, [])
    ** (EXIT) an exception was raised:
        ** (MatchError) no match of right hand side value: {:error, {{:EXIT, {{:badmatch, {:error, {{:undefined_function, {:wxWebView, :new, 0}}, [{:wxe_util, :rec, 1, [file: 'wxe_util.erl', line: 110]}, {Desktop.Fallback, :webview_new, 1, [file: 'lib/desktop/fallback.ex', line: 88]}, {Desktop.Window, :init, 1, [file: 'lib/desktop/window.ex', line: 175]}, {:wx_object, :init_it, 6, [file: 'wx_object.erl', line: 404]}, {:proc_lib, :init_p_do_apply, 3, [file: 'proc_lib.erl', line: 226]}]}}}, [{Desktop.Window, :start_link, 1, [file: 'lib/desktop/window.ex', line: 103]}, {:supervisor, :do_start_child_i, 3, [file: 'supervisor.erl', line: 414]}, {:supervisor, :do_start_child, 2, [file: 'supervisor.erl', line: 400]}, {:supervisor, :handle_start_child, 2, [file: 'supervisor.erl', line: 706]}, {:supervisor, :handle_call, 3, [file: 'supervisor.erl', line: 455]}, {:gen_server, :try_handle_call, 4, [file: 'gen_server.erl', line: 721]}, {:gen_server, :handle_msg, 6, [file: 'gen_server.erl', line: 750]}, {:proc_lib, :init_p_do_apply, 3, [file: 'proc_lib.erl', line: 226]}]}}, {:child, :undefined, TodoWindow, {Desktop.Window, :start_link, [[app: :todo_app, id: TodoWindow, title: "TodoApp", size: {600, 500}, icon: "icon.png", menubar: TodoApp.MenuBar, icon_menu: TodoApp.Menu, url: &TodoWeb.Endpoint.url/0, app: :todo_app, id: TodoWindow]]}, :permanent, false, 5000, :worker, [Desktop.Window]}}}
            (todo_app 0.0.1) lib/todo_app.ex:24: TodoApp.start/2
            (kernel 8.0) application_master.erl:293: :application_master.start_it_old/4

I have wxWidgets installed, but it looks like it can’t find it. This is my OS version:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS
Release:        20.04
Codename:       focal
(base) pedro:~/Workplace

How can I fix the issue?

1 Like
2

Did you compile Erlang with the local version of wxWidgets? Instructions are on the page in the “Install Erlang OTP/24” section (although the header of that section should probably mention wxWidgets to make it more clear that you need to follow it even if you have Erlang/OTP 24 already installed.

3

I installed erlang with asdf like I normally do.

asdf install erlang 24.0

Perhaps this is not sufficient ?

4

It is not. With that command the system version of wx will be used (which doesn’t support the web browser window, which results in the error you received). You might be able to get away with not including the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable. I don’t remember if I set that when I was playing with the library. Also I’m fairly sure that the asdf-erlang plugin will read KERL_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS but you may need to double-check. Good luck! I’m pretty excited about this library as well :grin:

5

I installed everything according to the page. The result wasn’t any better. I also installed and compiled wxWidgets from source and yet nothing.

The one thing that ended up saving me was this discussion:

Where they suggest the following commands:

asdf plugin-update --all
asdf install erlang 24.0.1

Indeed, installing version 24.0.1 with asdf fixed the issue for me.

3 Likes
6

Great you could solve this! Hopefully, this is going to get easier with forthcoming OTP releases. If you have any further issues/feedback feel free to @mention me directly in a post or send a message on the Elixir slack.

Cheers!

4 Likes