Electron error on canceling file open dialog

Question

When I press the cancel button on file open dialog (code below) I receive the following error:

A JavaScript error occurred in the main process

Uncaught Exception:
TypeError: Error processing argument -1.
    at TypeError (native)
    at [object Object].Object.defineProperty.set (/Applications/Electron.app/Contents/Resources/atom.asar/browser/api/lib/web-contents.js:92:24)
    at main.js:37:20
    at Function.wrappedCallback (/Applications/Electron.app/Contents/Resources/atom.asar/browser/api/lib/dialog.js:80:16)

The error is presented as a modal popup:

I have only tested on a Mac so far.

My code is as follows:

The main process code that handles the creation of dialog is as follows:

import electron, { ipcMain } from 'electron'

const app = electron.app
const BrowserWindow = electron.BrowserWindow

electron.crashReporter.start()

let mainWindow = null

app.on('window-all-closed', () => {
  if (process.platform != 'darwin') app.quit()
})

app.on('ready', () => {

  mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({
    width: 800,
    height: 600
  })

  mainWindow.loadURL(`file://${__dirname}/index.html`)
  mainWindow.webContents.openDevTools()

  mainWindow.on('closed', () => {
    mainWindow = null
  })

  ipcMain.on('file:open', (e, arg) => {
    electron.dialog.showOpenDialog(mainWindow, {
      properties: ['openFile'],
      filters: [{
        name: 'Outlines',
        extensions: ['pxo']
      }]
    }, (filePathList) => {
      debugger
      e.returnValue = filePathList
    })
  })

})

My debugger statement is never reached. Also the code works fine when some files are actually selected, and only fails if cancel is pressed.

The code (ES6+JSX) that triggers the IPC call is as follows:

class Welcome extends React.Component {

  render() {
    const styles = this.getStyles()

    return (
      <div style={styles.outerContainer}>
              <a style={styles.btnSetLink} onClick={this.initFileSelection.bind(this)}>
                Open File
              </a>
      </div>
    )
  }

  initFileSelection() {
    const filePathList = ipcRenderer.sendSync('file:open')
  }

  ...

The code is processed through babel 6. My .babelrc is as follows:

{
  "presets": ["react", "es2015"]
}

Version of electron: v0.35.1.

Versions of babel dependencies:

├─┬ babel-preset-es2015@6.3.13
│ ├── babel-plugin-check-es2015-constants@6.3.13
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-es2015-arrow-functions@6.3.13
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-es2015-block-scoped-functions@6.3.13
│ ├─┬ babel-plugin-transform-es2015-block-scoping@6.3.13
│ │ ├─┬ babel-template@6.3.13
│ │ │ └── babylon@6.3.18
│ │ ├─┬ babel-traverse@6.3.19
│ │ │ ├── babylon@6.3.18
│ │ │ ├── globals@8.15.0
│ │ │ └─┬ repeating@1.1.3
│ │ │   └─┬ is-finite@1.0.1
│ │ │     └── number-is-nan@1.0.0
│ │ └─┬ babel-types@6.3.18
│ │   ├── esutils@2.0.2
│ │   └── to-fast-properties@1.0.1
│ ├─┬ babel-plugin-transform-es2015-classes@6.3.15
│ │ ├── babel-helper-define-map@6.3.13
│ │ ├── babel-helper-function-name@6.3.15
│ │ ├── babel-helper-optimise-call-expression@6.3.13
│ │ ├── babel-helper-replace-supers@6.3.13
│ │ └── babel-messages@6.3.18
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-es2015-computed-properties@6.3.13
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-es2015-destructuring@6.3.15
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-es2015-for-of@6.3.13
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-es2015-function-name@6.3.19
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-es2015-literals@6.3.13
│ ├─┬ babel-plugin-transform-es2015-modules-commonjs@6.3.16
│ │ └── babel-plugin-transform-strict-mode@6.3.13
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-es2015-object-super@6.3.13
│ ├─┬ babel-plugin-transform-es2015-parameters@6.3.18
│ │ ├─┬ babel-helper-call-delegate@6.3.13
│ │ │ └── babel-helper-hoist-variables@6.3.13
│ │ └── babel-helper-get-function-arity@6.3.13
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-es2015-shorthand-properties@6.3.13
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-es2015-spread@6.3.14
│ ├─┬ babel-plugin-transform-es2015-sticky-regex@6.3.13
│ │ └── babel-helper-regex@6.3.13
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-es2015-template-literals@6.3.13
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-es2015-typeof-symbol@6.3.13
│ ├─┬ babel-plugin-transform-es2015-unicode-regex@6.3.13
│ │ └─┬ regexpu@1.3.0
│ │   ├── esprima@2.7.1
│ │   ├─┬ recast@0.10.33
│ │   │ ├── ast-types@0.8.12
│ │   │ └── esprima-fb@15001.1001.0-dev-harmony-fb
│ │   ├── regenerate@1.2.1
│ │   ├── regjsgen@0.2.0
│ │   └─┬ regjsparser@0.1.5
│ │     └── jsesc@0.5.0
│ └─┬ babel-plugin-transform-regenerator@6.3.18
│   ├── babel-core@6.3.17
│   ├── babel-plugin-syntax-async-functions@6.3.13
│   ├── babylon@6.3.18
│   └── private@0.1.6
├─┬ babel-preset-react@6.3.13
│ ├── babel-plugin-syntax-flow@6.3.13
│ ├── babel-plugin-syntax-jsx@6.3.13
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-flow-strip-types@6.3.15
│ ├── babel-plugin-transform-react-display-name@6.3.13
│ ├─┬ babel-plugin-transform-react-jsx@6.3.13
│ │ └── babel-helper-builder-react-jsx@6.3.13
│ └── babel-plugin-transform-react-jsx-source@6.3.13
├─┬ babel-register@6.3.13
│ ├─┬ babel-core@6.3.17
│ │ ├─┬ babel-code-frame@6.3.13
│ │ │ ├─┬ chalk@1.1.1
│ │ │ │ ├── ansi-styles@2.1.0
│ │ │ │ ├── escape-string-regexp@1.0.3
│ │ │ │ ├─┬ has-ansi@2.0.0
│ │ │ │ │ └── ansi-regex@2.0.0
│ │ │ │ ├── strip-ansi@3.0.0
│ │ │ │ └── supports-color@2.0.0
│ │ │ ├── js-tokens@1.0.1
│ │ │ └─┬ line-numbers@0.2.0
│ │ │   └── left-pad@0.0.3
│ │ ├─┬ babel-generator@6.3.19
│ │ │ ├─┬ detect-indent@3.0.1
│ │ │ │ ├── get-stdin@4.0.1
│ │ │ │ └── minimist@1.2.0
│ │ │ ├── is-integer@1.0.6
│ │ │ └── trim-right@1.0.1
│ │ ├── babel-helpers@6.3.13
│ │ ├── babylon@6.3.18
│ │ ├── convert-source-map@1.1.2
│ │ ├─┬ debug@2.2.0
│ │ │ └── ms@0.7.1
│ │ ├── json5@0.4.0
│ │ ├─┬ minimatch@2.0.10
│ │ │ └─┬ brace-expansion@1.1.2
│ │ │   ├── balanced-match@0.3.0
│ │ │   └── concat-map@0.0.1
│ │ ├── path-is-absolute@1.0.0
│ │ ├── shebang-regex@1.0.0
│ │ ├── slash@1.0.0
│ │ └── source-map@0.5.3
│ ├── babel-runtime@5.8.34
│ ├── core-js@1.2.6
│ ├─┬ home-or-tmp@1.0.0
│ │ ├── os-tmpdir@1.0.1
│ │ └── user-home@1.1.1
│ ├── lodash@3.10.1
│ ├── path-exists@1.0.0
│ └─┬ source-map-support@0.2.10
│   └─┬ source-map@0.1.32
│     └── amdefine@1.0.0

Any help resolving the error would be highly appreciated.

Answer 1

For my case, I din't have any javascript error on the UI nor in the console. The app would just quit like you just closed it normally after cancelling the file open dialog. This was happening when I was using electron version 5. Updating to version 8 resolved this issue.

Answer 2

i use this to handle it

process.on('uncaughtException', function (exception) {
   // handle or ignore error
});

Answer 3

Same problem here, I solved it by coercing return value to false (it is undefined otherwise):

ipc.on 'request:save:dialog', (event, params) ->
  params||={}
  event.returnValue = dialog.showSaveDialog(params) || false