Windows bundling failing (in GH Actions)

[andrewdavidmackenzie]

I'm trying to build for MacOS, Linux and Windows in GH Actions for my meshchat app:

Here is the Cargo.toml section

# For creation of OS bundles
[package.metadata.bundle]
identifier = "meshchat.mackenzie-serres.net"
icon = ["assets/images/icon.png"]
resources = []
category = "public.app-category.social-networking" # would prefer to find a better category
short_description = "An application for chatting on the Meshtastic LoRa MESH via connected Bluetooth LE radios"
osx_frameworks = []
osx_minimum_system_version = "10.11"
#osx_url_schemes = ""
osx_info_plist_exts = ["assets/plist_exts/bluetooth.txt"]

When running in GH Actions on a release I get this error:

    Finished `release` profile [optimized] target(s) in 6m 15s
warning: MSI bundle support is still experimental.
    Bundling meshchat.msi
error: Failed to collect resource file information
  Caused by: The system cannot find the file specified. (os error 2)
Backtrace [{ fn: "BaseThreadInitThunk" }, { fn: "RtlUserThreadStart" }]

Here is the workflow that runs when I push a tag: https://github.com/andrewdavidmackenzie/meshchat/blob/main/.github/workflows/tag.yml

which runs on this matrix: os: [ ubuntu-latest, windows-latest, macos-15 ]

Which seems to build for this target: stable-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc

Which seems to be supported: https://github.com/burtonageo/cargo-bundle?tab=readme-ov-file#targets

Example GH Actions run: https://github.com/andrewdavidmackenzie/meshchat/actions/runs/19872455113/job/56951452454

Unfortunately, I don't have a windows machine to try it on locally.

Any help would be much appreciated!

[andrewdavidmackenzie]

I was wondering if there is anything I could do to help advance things on cargo bundle for Windows (x86 and arm)?

Meanwhile I am using cargo wix for x86 Windows, but there is no compatible arm installer (V3) that I can use with it for windows arm builds, so I'd kind of like to simplify back to using cargo bundle for everything.

[andrewdavidmackenzie]

I'd like to use cargo bundle for all my app bundling across macos, linux and windows (x86 and arm). Due to this issue/limitation

I have been trying wix and cargo wix. That works on x86, but lack of installers complicate windows11-arm and I haven't been able to get it to work for that platform.

So, I'm back here, offering help to advance windows bundling, especially on ARM, if I can in any way.

I don't have a windows machine, which complicates things a bit. But in the past I have solved some Windows issues using a trial license of Parallels on macOS and I could try that again to debug cargo bundle locally on windows on arm.

My current metadata is:

# For creation of OS bundles
[package.metadata.bundle]
identifier = "meshchat.mackenzie-serres.net"
icon = ["assets/images/icon.png", "assets/images/icon.ico"]
resources = ["assets"]
category = "public.app-category.social-networking" # would prefer to find a better category
short_description = "An application for chatting on the Meshtastic LoRa MESH via connected Bluetooth LE radios"
osx_frameworks = []
osx_minimum_system_version = "10.11"
#osx_url_schemes = ""
osx_info_plist_exts = ["assets/plist_exts/bluetooth.txt"]
deb_depends = ["openssl-devel", "libdbus-sys"]

[andrewdavidmackenzie]

I've installed Parallels on my macos ARM, the MS Visual tools, vs code, cargo, rust and then cargo bundle.
When running locally (windows11-arm64) I get this error:

PS C:\Users\amackenz\workspace\meshchat> cargo bundle --release
    Finished `release` profile [optimized] target(s) in 0.44s
warning: MSI bundle support is still experimental.
    Bundling meshchat.msi
error: Failed to collect resource file information
  Caused by: The system cannot find the file specified. (os error 2)
<disabled>

I tried removing references to icon and resources from meta-data, but no change. Really need to know what file it is trying to find...

[andrewdavidmackenzie]

Debugging as best as I can, it looks like the "binary_name" is the raw application name, but in collect_resource_info() it looks for that file, but on windows the file has a ".exe" extension to it, and the file is not found.

[andrewdavidmackenzie]

Adding this hack:

    let binary_path = settings.binary_path().with_extension(OsStr::new("exe"));
    println!("binary-path: {:?}", binary_path);
    let meta = binary_path.metadata()?;

it passes that stage and advances to:

error: Failed to generate resource cabinets
  Caused by: The system cannot find the file specified. (os error 2)

Which I suspect will be another instance of the same issue.

[andrewdavidmackenzie]

Yay!
in settings.rs adding:

        let binary_path = target_dir.join(&binary_name).with_extension("exe");

it now builds an msi, which means the code above it:

let (bundle_settings, mut binary_name) = match &build_artifact {
            BuildArtifact::Main => {
                if let Some(target) = package
                    .targets
                    .iter()
                    .find(|target| target.kind.contains(&TargetKind::Bin))
                {
                    (bundle_settings, target.name.clone())
                } else {
                    anyhow::bail!("No `bin` target is found in package '{}'", package.name)
                }
            }
            BuildArtifact::Bin(name) => (
                bundle_settings_from_table(&bundle_settings.bin, "bin", name)?,
                name.clone(),
            ),
            BuildArtifact::Example(name) => (
                bundle_settings_from_table(&bundle_settings.example, "example", name)?,
                name.clone(),
            ),
        };
        let binary_extension = match package_type {
            Some(PackageType::WindowsMsi) | Some(PackageType::WxsMsi) => ".exe",
            _ => "",
        };

I will debug that more

[andrewdavidmackenzie]

OK, so it looks like if you explicitly pass the "--format msi" on windows, it works!

I had mistakenly assumed that it was detected (like on macos and linux).

[the-drunk-coder]

OK, so it looks like if you explicitly pass the "--format msi" on windows, it works!

I had mistakenly assumed that it was detected (like on macos and linux).

Works, as in, works with your changes? When I add the --format msi flag I still get an error:

error: Failed to generate Component table
Caused by: "<my-bin>.exe" is not a valid value for column KeyPath

EDIT: Oof, ok, I'm just not allowed to have hyphens in the executable name ... good to know

[andrewdavidmackenzie]

Worked when adding the format explicitly.

But given the poor response to issues here, and problems with windows arm support (due to wix), I switched to cargo-packager and so far am very happy. Easier to use also.