Production build failing on **macOS**: Missing core JavaScript dependencies

[itskawsar]

What were you trying to do?

I am successfully building my application for macOS (Apple Silicon).

What happened?

But the resulting .app fails to launch, throwing a series of ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND JavaScript errors.

How to reproduce the bug

1. Run php artisan native:build mac (or npm run release).
2. Open the generated .app from the dist folder.
3. The app crashes immediately with a "JavaScript error occurred in the main process" dialog.

Debug Output

Uncaught Exception: Error [ERR_MODULE_NOT_FOUND]: Cannot find package 'electron-store' imported from /Applications/WShipERP.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar/vendor/nativephp/desktop/resources/electron/electron-plugin/dist/server/state.js

I have been manually installing missing packages one by one to get past previous errors. So far, the build has complained about the following missing dependencies:

• electron-store
• electron-updater
• kill-sync
• ps-node
• @electron-toolkit/utils
• @electron/remote
• fix-path

It seems like these core bridge dependencies are not being bundled into the app.asar automatically, or they are missing from the nativephp/desktop requirements.

Which operating systems have you seen this occur on?

macOS

Notes

Environment

• NativePHP Version: 2.1.0
• PHP Version: 8.4 (via Laravel Herd)
• OS: macOS (ARM64)
• Electron: ^31.0.0
• Electron Builder: ^24.13.0

[gwleuverink]

Hey, I think you are working with a faulty install of some kind. These dependencies are part of the install & build steps.

Manually installing them will the only work if you publish the electron backend. But this is treating a symptom, not the cause. You should not do this.

FYI we’re building and distributing a mac app right now on 2.1 without problems. About the same environment you are using to build 🤔

Could you try to delete the vendor directory. Run composer install and native:install & then rerun the build?

[itskawsar]

Yes, you are right. After a fresh install, the build process completed and the application is running as expected!
However, I noticed that the Artisan command throws an error at the very end of the process:

 Running command: npm run release

npm error Missing script: "release"
npm error
npm error To see a list of scripts, run:
npm error   npm run
npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: /Users/kawsar/.npm/_logs/2026-02-16T05_37_20_596Z-debug-0.log
 Command failed: npm run release

Even with this error, the application was successfully built and is located at /nativephp/electron/dist/Laravel-1.0.0-arm64.dmg. It runs perfectly and the issues are resolved.

Is the release script supposed to be automatically added to the root package.json by the native:install command, or should we be adding it manually?