Provided .Net Link Insufficient

ZenRevision commented 2 months ago

Newly installed and and fully updated Windows 10 system.
Installed BrowserPicker and when launching app I got the .NET required notification with a download link.
Downloaded & installed .NET 8.0 Desktop Runtime (v8.08) from the link provided by BrowserPicker.
Tried launching BrowserPicker again, but recieved same .NET required notification.
Rebooted system... no change.
Uninstalled and reinstalled BrowserPicker... no change.

So apparently the provided link to download the required .NET runtime does not actually include all requirements... or something else is broken.

Not going to install a ~300mb BrowserPicker version that includes all requirements bundled, as I'll need .NET runtimes on this system anyway for various other apps. Currently in the process of downloading/installing various other .NET versions and components.

This seems like an issue in BrowserPicker. If you aren't going to include links to all requirements within the app, then all requirements should at least be documented in the README here on github.

The only thing about requirements mentioned in the README here on github was this; "BrowserPicker.msi and Bundle.zip are JIT compiled and require you have the .NET 8 runtime installed." *With no links provided.

The other possibility is that BrowserPicker is just failing to recognize that the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime actually is installed, and failing to launch correctly. Either way... something in BrowserPicker is not working as intended, making the app unusable for me currently. Perhaps as I install additional .NET components/versions this issue may be resolved, which will be an annoying process of trial and error at best.

Edit: ASP.NET Core 8.0 Runtime is apparently required. Installing it resolved the issue described above. As far as I can tell, this requirement is undocumented.

mortenn commented 1 month ago

I think the popup you are referring to is something that I do not have control over, could you share a screenshot of it?

ZenRevision commented 1 month ago

Edit Correction: Sorry, I would have to uninstall either: ASP.NET Core 8.0 Runtime or .NET 8.0 Desktop Runtime in order to get the popup notification window to reappear when trying to launch BrowserPicker. I can't do that right now without disrupting other processes.

If you can't control that popup, then at least include links to the full requirements here on github (see below).
The popup was definitely part of BrowserPicker, but maybe it's a .NET default app behavior, which I wouldn't know about.

To Clarify:

After installing BrowserPicker, trying to launch it without having .NET requirements installed, causes a popup notice about the .NET 8.0 requirement. The popup includes a link to download the required .NET 8.0 Desktop Runtime. Based on the app's description here on github (which does mention the .NET requirement), that is an actual requirement. So that's all well and good.
The problem is that installing that .NET 8.0 Desktop Runtime won't actually fully satisfy BrowserPicker's .NET requirements, so that popup window about .NET requirement still appears when trying to launch BrowserPicker (preventing BrowserPicker from launching).
I see no indication here on github what the additional requirement is. It was only through trial and error that I determined that it was the ASP.NET Core 8.0 Runtime (linked in original post & below).
Only installing that ASP.NET Core 8.0 Runtime would allow BrowserPicker to actually launch and function.
It's working fine for me now. Thank you! Great app! Sorry I don't want to break it again to show you a screenshot of the standard .NET requirement notification.

In Summary & The Main Point:

In the description of BrowserPicker here on github it mentions the requirement: .NET 8.0 Desktop Runtime, but does not provide a link to that first requirement (I included the link there).
In the description here on github, there is no mention of the additional requirement: ASP.NET Core 8.0 Runtime, and being as there is no mention of this requirement, there is of course also no link provided for that second requirement (I included the link there).

Simple Solution:

Just edit the description here on github to include a note about both of these requirements with links to download them (I provided the links right there just above this).

This ASP.NET Requirement is Mentioned in Another Issue Here Also

Where the person reporting the issue said:

The BrowserPicker.App.csproj project is a WinExe WPF project. ... but the same .csproj file also has <FrameworkReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.App" /> ...why does it have this FrameworkReference? Can/should it be removed?

They did also mention that they successfully removed the reference and built the project, but then mentioned other stuff breaking, so I don't know about all that.

It does seem clear though that this BrowserPicker project, as it is now, does include this ASP.NET requirement, in addition to the .NET requirement.
Which is fine by me.
I just think it should be mentioned and links to the requirements should be provided.
Especially given that the .NET requirements popup notification regarding missing requirements only catches the .NET 8 Runtime requirement, but fails to correctly identify or provide a link to that ASP.NET 8 Core requirement (but does prevent the app from running without it).
Currently this BrowserPicker app has 2 requirements, but only 1 requirement is semi-accounted for.
The description only mentions 1 requirement, and provides no links for either of it's 2 requirements.

mortenn commented 1 month ago

Thanks for the additional details.

I was not aware of any special requirements, but I do have all manner of stuff installed on all the systems I use this on, so that is natural.

There is no way I can make a popup display when the app launches on a system without a runtime installed, so that must be something dotnet adds to the executable it builds automatically.

I do not want asp.net to be a requirement to install the app, so I'll have a poke around if I can get that requirement removed.

drogga commented 1 month ago

Windows has an optional SandBox feature which can be enabled (the Virtualization must be enabled and the CPU must support the instructions necessary for the SandBox feature) in which you can test without the requirements or in a VM and make a screenshot of the prompt, anyway from what I remember, only the Core was necessary, I can't confirm tho, because on my Core2Duo I ended up having to use the portable archive with included requirements and I don't want to poke around and mess with something that is currently working, risking of breaking it. I wish it didn't have any requirements and was still like under ~100 MB installed/extracted, but that will probably require to be rewritten and I'm not familiar with all of this, but it's probably possible.

BTW, speaking of the ReadMe - there's a typo I noticed under "Native image generation", where it says "This significantly enhances launch times for he executable.".

dmadiedo commented 1 month ago

I encountered this issue. The required component is "ASP.NET Core Runtime", and it can be found here: https://versionsof.net/core/8.0/8.0.0/ this may be useful for updating the links in the installer.

mortenn / BrowserPicker