electron/docs/development/upgrading-chrome.md

Upgrading Chromium Workflow

This document is meant to serve as an overview of what steps are needed on each Chromium upgrade in Electron.

• Upgrade libcc to a new Chromium version
• Make Electron code compatible with the new libcc
• Update Electron dependencies (crashpad, NodeJS, etc.) if needed
• Make internal builds of libcc and electron
• Update Electron docs if necessary

Upgrade libcc to a new Chromium

Steps

1. Get the code and initialize the project:

$ git clone git@github.com:electron/libchromiumcontent.git
$ cd libchromiumcontent
$ ./script/bootstrap -v

2. Find the new beta/stable Chromium version from OmahaProxy.

3. Put it into the libchromiumcontent/VERSION file, then run $ ./script/update

• It will probably fail applying patches.

4. Fix *.patch files in the /patches and /patches-mas folders.

5. (Optional) Run a separate script to apply patches (script/update uses it internally):

$ ./script/apply-patches

• There is also another script /script/patch.py that could be more useful, check --help to learn how it works with $ ./script/patch.py -h

6. Run the build when all patches can be applied without errors

$ ./script/build

• If some patches are no longer compatible with the Chromium code, fix compilation errors.

7. When build succeeds, create a dist for Electron

$ ./script/create-dist --no_zip

• It will create dist/main folder in the root of the libcc repo, you will need it to build Electron.

8. (Optional) Update script contents if there are errors resultant of some files being removed or renamed. (--no_zip prevents script from create dist archives, you don't need them.)

Update Electron Code

Steps

1. Get the code:

$ git clone git@github.com:electron/electron.git
$ cd electron

2. If you already have libcc built on you machine in its own repo, you need to tell Electron explicitly to use it:

$ ./script/bootstrap.py -v \
 --libcc_source_path <libcc_folder>/src \
 --libcc_shared_library_path <libcc_folder>/shared_library \
 --libcc_static_library_path <libcc_folder>/static_library

• If you haven't yet built libcc but it's already supposed to be upgraded to a new Chromium, bootstrap Electron as usual $ ./script/bootstrap.py -v
  • Ensure that libcc submodule (vendor/libchromiumcontent) points to a right revision

3. Set CLANG_REVISION in script/update-clang.sh to match the version Chromium is using.

• Located in electron/libchromiumcontent/src/tools/clang/scripts/update.py

4. Checkout Chromium if you haven't already: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/{VERSION}/tools/clang/scripts/update.py

• (Replace the {VERSION} placeholder in the url above to the Chromium version libcc uses.)

5. Build Electron.

• Try to build Debug version first: $ ./script/build.py -c D
• You will need it to run tests

6. Fix compilation and linking errors

7. Ensure that Release build can be built too: $ ./script/build.py -c R

• Often the Release build will have different linking errors that you'll need to fix.
• Some compilation and linking errors are caused by missing source/object files in the libcc dist

8. Update ./script/create-dist in the libcc repo, recreate a dist, and run Electron bootstrap script once again.

Tips for fixing compilation errors

• Fix build config errors first
• Fix fatal errors first, like missing files and errors related to compiler flags or defines
• Try to identify complex errors as soon as possible.
  • Ask for help if you're not sure how to fix them
• Disable all Electron features, fix the build, then enable them one by one
• Add more build flags to disable features in build-time.

When a Debug build of Electron succeeds, run the tests: $ ./script/test.py Fix the failing tests.

Follow all the steps above to fix Electron code on all supported platforms.

Update Crashpad

• Electron's crashpad fork: https://github.com/electron/crashpad
• Primary crashpad repo: https://chromium.googlesource.com/crashpad/crashpad/

Steps

If there are any compilation errors related to the Crashpad, it probably means you need to update the fork to a newer revision:

1. Clone Electron's fork of the Crashpad, add the main repo as another remote:

$ git clone https://github.com/electron/crashpad && cd crashpad
$ git remote add upstream https://chromium.googlesource.com/crashpad/crashpad/ && git fetch upstream

2. Find a revision Chromium uses in src/third_party/crashpad/README.chromium

3. Rebase the master branch to that REVISION

$ git rebase REVISION

• If there are nontrivial conflicts during rebase, consult with the commit's author.

4. Add a tag with the next Electron version to a top commit in the master branch

• e.g. if current Electron version is 1.11.*, then use tag electron-1.12.0, because it will be used in the next version.

5. Ensure Electron-specific commits in the master branch on GitHub are properly tagged

• If they aren't, force push will make them orphans and they'll be lost.

6. Force push to Electron's crashpad fork.

7. Update /vendor/crashpad submodule in the Electron's upgrade branch to point to the updated crashpad.

Update NodeJS

• Upgrade vendor/node to the Node release that corresponds to the v8 version being used in the new Chromium release. See the v8 versions in Node on https://nodejs.org/en/download/releases for more details.
  • You can find v8 version Chromium is using on OmahaProxy. If it's not available check v8/include/v8-version.h in the Chromium checkout.

Verify ffmpeg Support

Electron ships with a version of ffmpeg that includes proprietary codecs by default. A version without these codecs is built and distributed with each release as well. Each Chrome upgrade should verify that switching this version is still supported.

You can verify Electron's support for multiple ffmpeg builds by loading the following page. It should work with the default ffmpeg library distributed with Electron and not work with the ffmpeg library built without proprietary codecs.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Proprietary Codec Check</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>Checking if Electron is using proprietary codecs by loading video from http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/videos/big_buck_bunny.mp4</p>
    <p id="outcome"></p>
    <video style="display:none" src="http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/videos/big_buck_bunny.mp4" autoplay></video>
    <script>
      const video = document.querySelector('video')
      video.addEventListener('error', ({target}) => {
        if (target.error.code === target.error.MEDIA_ERR_SRC_NOT_SUPPORTED) {
          document.querySelector('#outcome').textContent = 'Not using proprietary codecs, video emitted source not supported error event.'
        } else {
          document.querySelector('#outcome').textContent = `Unexpected error: ${target.error.code}`
        }
      })
      video.addEventListener('playing', () => {
        document.querySelector('#outcome').textContent = 'Using proprietary codecs, video started playing.'
      })
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

Useful Links

• Chrome Release Schedule
• OmahaProxy
• Chromium Issue Tracker