Bug: React DevTools failing silently on Debian

[Delfshkrimm]

React version: react-devtools v4.9.0

Steps To Reproduce

1. On debian, install react-devtools as a dev dependency in your project or globally
2. try and run npx react-devtools or just react-devtools

The current behavior

The command fails silently and nothing happens.

The expected behavior

React DevTools should start and connect to app.

I am not sure this is the right place to post this, but since I know how to fix this issue and I think other people might face it, I'm opening this thread to also post the solution.

I run into this issue on Linux (debian bullseye with kernel 5.7.0). The main problem is connected to Electron (afaik since version 5) not being able to launch without binary being owned by root and chmod 4755. The issue is with the new sandbox and the priviledges it requires to launch.

There is also another workaround I found some months ago on the dedicated thread from Electron's GH (since this is a common issue for Linux users of all Electron applications) that works for every packaged Electron app and binary.
Instead of modifying the electron binary permissions, you can instead tweak an option of your running kernel by doing:

sudo sysctl kernel.unprivileged_userns_clone=1

Then your Electron apps will launch, and thus so will React DevTools.

Feel free to close this if it isn't relevant here (since not really an issue with devtools itself, rather with Electron x Debian), but I haven't found anything regarding this matter and I think someone might encounter this issue in the future (hoping I'm not totaly mistaken about this to begin with 😄)

[bvaughn]

Would you be interested in adding a section to the standalone DevTools PR for other Linux users?

Issues like this have come up before (see #19976).

[mdaj06]

Can I have a go at this @bvaughn

[bvaughn]

Yes.

[johncadengo]

Experiencing this as well. Let me know if there are other workarounds. Modifying the kernel does not seem like a great option for most users.

[bvaughn]

PR #20496 updates Electron from v9 to v11 (the latest stable release). If Electron itself does not support an OS– that's not something the React team can tackle (no bandwidth).

I'd welcome an update to the DevTools README that at least calls this out, but that would need to be community driven. (I don't even have a way to test or debug this myself, so there's not much I can do.)

Tempted to close this issue since it's not very actionable for us.

[johncadengo]

@bvaughn is it accurate to say that by switching from v9 to v11, in order to add support for one OS, it broke support for another OS?

[bvaughn]

No? What Os was broken by the switch from v9 to v11?

We haven't even released that change yet. This issue was broken prior to that upgrade. My point in mentioning it was that– beyond upgrading to the latest Electron, there isn't much we can do on our end (short of a major rewrite to move away from Electron entirely- which we don't have the bandwidth for).

[Delfshkrimm]

I agree with you @bvaughn, this has nothing to do with react devtools itself, and the problem is present since react devtools switch to Electron version > 5, so quite a long time I'd say.
I created this issue only for posterity and guidance on how you think this information should be displayed to the linux users that will certainly run into it in the future (or already did and couldn't figure out why). Hence your proposal to update the global react devtools readme seems really adapted to this matter.

I confirm the switch from v9 to v11 isn't related to this issue, since it's there since Electron v5.

To recap what could be done to solve this issue on the user side:

• either modify the running kernel to set unprivileged_userns_clone to 1
• chmod 4755 and chown root on the electron/devtool binary to be able to launch the binary with the new sandbox

[bvaughn]

I'd welcome a PR that updates the README for standalone to add a section for Debian.

[a7madgamal]

a related note about the "failing silently" part
I'm having a similar behaviour (but on MacOS due to something else probably) but it was very annoying that running react-devtools does nothing and not even with an error code exit!
After some debugging I found the issue:

in this line we should check result for error and do something helpful like printing the error and also changing the return code

[a7madgamal]

happy to open a PR if someone confirms what the correct behavior should be