Cannot find module 'debug' - pkg - exe

Question

I made a nodeJS app using puppeteer-extra and some puppeteer-extra-plugins, debugging the source code works just fine. It also runs OK when I pack it into an .exe file using https://www.npmjs.com/package/pkg.

However, when the .exe is moved to a different directory than the 'output' directory, I'm getting the error

Cannot find module 'debug'
1) If you want to compile the package/file into executable, please pay attention to compilation warnings
 and specify a literal in 'require' call. 2) If you don't want to compile the package/file into executable
 and want to 'require' it from filesystem (likely plugin), specify an absolute path in 'require' call
 using process.cwd() or process.execPath.

I never use the debug module, it must be required internally by some of my dependencies... but how can I handle this error?

I've got these requires

const puppeteer = require(path.join(process.cwd(), 'dependencies', 'puppeteer-extra'));
const StealthPlugin = require(path.join(process.cwd(), 'dependencies', 'puppeteer-extra-plugin-stealth'));
const RecaptchaPlugin = require(path.join(process.cwd(), 'dependencies', 'puppeteer-extra-plugin-recaptcha'));
const UserPrefsPlugin = require(path.join(process.cwd(), 'dependencies', 'puppeteer-extra-plugin-user-preferences'));

and my package.json (config for pkg)

"pkg": {
    "scripts": [
      "node_modules/puppeteer/lib/*.js"
    ],
    "assets": [
      "./node_modules/@types",
      "./node_modules/typescript/lib/*.d.ts",
      "src/**/*.ts",
      "./tsconfig.json"
    ],
    "targets": [
      "node8-win32"
    ]
  }

gantonioid gantonioid · Accepted Answer · 2021-03-18T16:43:10

I solved it by changing my requires to

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer-extra');
const RecaptchaPlugin = require('puppeteer-extra-plugin-recaptcha');
const UserPrefsPlugin = require('puppeteer-extra-plugin-user-preferences');

and later, launching the browser setting explicitly the executablePath in puppeteer's options.

const options = {
  headless: false,
  devtools: false,
  args: ['--start-maximized'],
  timeout: 300000,
  downloadPath: path.join(process.env.USERPROFILE, 'Downloads'),
  askDownload: false,
  executablePath: path.join(process.cwd(), "puppeteer-extra", 
  "node_modules\\puppeteer\\.local-chromium\\win64-722234\\chrome-win\\chrome.exe")
}
await puppeteer.launch(this.options)

Note however, that I had to leave out the 'puppeteer-extra-plugin-stealth', because it complained about

"A plugin listed 'puppeteer-extra-plugin-stealth/evasions/chrome.runtime' as dependency, which is currently missing. Please install it:"

and adding a pkg/asset as suggested here, did not help

Cannot find module 'debug' - pkg - exe

1 Answers