Renderer throws error trying to clone uncloneable object for serialisation

[UberMouse]

Just updating our Electron app to v5 beta now, running into an issue trying to serialize some objects. Specifically, objects containing an xstate interpreter which isn't cloneable/serializable. Whenever one is logged our React app crashes as electron-log throws an error. Adding a try/catch in the preload around the ipcRenderer.send('__ELECTRON_LOG__', message); call stops the crash. The crash is happening in the electron serializer that ipcRenderer.send calls. Electron version 21.3.1

From looking at the docs, there doesn't seem to be a better solution? I thought maybe I could solve it with a transform that stripped those objects out, but that doesn't seem to be possible in the renderer process?

[UberMouse]

I've also had some problems with the toJSON/toString methods in the object.js transform throwing errors on similar objects. So I've patched those to have a try/catch as well. Patch for reference

diff --git a/src/main/transforms/object.js b/src/main/transforms/object.js
index 3b97493bd67060bc063f2651236fc59777dd598f..d3e8c593db27d7bb5d2dc5c8bb4fe01b0335636a 100644
--- a/src/main/transforms/object.js
+++ b/src/main/transforms/object.js
@@ -54,7 +54,12 @@ module.exports = {
   },

   toJSON({ data }) {
-    return JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(data, createSerializer()));
+    try {
+      return JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(data, createSerializer()));
+    } catch(e) {
+      console.error("failed to call toJSON", e);
+      return "";
+    }
   },

   toString({ data, transport }) {
@@ -75,7 +80,12 @@ module.exports = {
       }
     });

-    return util.formatWithOptions(inspectOptions, ...simplifiedData);
+    try {
+      return util.formatWithOptions(inspectOptions, ...simplifiedData);
+    } catch (e) {
+      console.error("failed to call toString", e);
+      return "";
+    }
   },
 };

diff --git a/src/renderer/preload.js b/src/renderer/preload.js
index a272c814ce3a28fd0b75d449c593a0cbdfc9e174..e3cbafe117818562079383b113d34aba830b9eef 100644
--- a/src/renderer/preload.js
+++ b/src/renderer/preload.js
@@ -35,7 +35,9 @@ function initialize({ contextBridge, ipcRenderer }) {

   const __electronLog = {
     sendToMain(message) {
-      ipcRenderer.send('__ELECTRON_LOG__', message);
+      try {
+        ipcRenderer.send('__ELECTRON_LOG__', message);
+      } catch (e) {}
     },

     log(...data) {

[megahertz]

Thank you for the report. I'm going to release a fix in a few days.

[megahertz]

Do you use xstate in the main process too? I've never seen an issue with that part before. There are no too much changes in transformers since v4.

[megahertz]

Now such an error handler correctly. I have no time to dive into xstate to find which data structure produces clone error. If someone could helps me with that I can change serializer to handle such a data properly.

[UberMouse]

Do you use xstate in the main process too?

Yes. I haven't noticed issues in the main process with it, but we don't log any xstate interpreters in the main process. I just ported our existing patch from v4 to v5 and we had try/catch around toJSON/toString since they used to be used in the renderer.