meshbay.git/packaging/win/build-node-runtime.ps1, branch 0.17

fix: Windows installer and desktop app start and stop the node one way

2026-09-27T20:20:53Z

A 0.16 upgrade in service mode left the previous node running: setup's unelevated taskkill cannot reach session 0, and it ran in customInstall, which electron-builder inserts after the files are copied. The locked exe was not replaced, and the new app talked to the old node ("started but could not link", "No operator paired"). Installer (build/installer.nsh, build/stop-node.ps1): - customCheckAppRunning, which runs before uninstallOldVersion and extraction, stops the node with an embedded stop-node.ps1: control API, then schtasks /end, then Stop-Process, and refuses to half-upgrade if one survives. - An upgrade keeps the mode it finds (task, launcher, previous install), restores the sign-in launcher the old uninstaller deletes, and restarts the node the way that mode runs it. A silent upgrade of an "at sign-in" install used to end with no autostart and no node. - The uninstaller removes the task and firewall rules only on a real uninstall, not on an update. Desktop app (src/main.js): - Start, Stop, Restart and node:start go through the CLI's lifecycle verbs instead of a second implementation; a child spawned by Electron also held Electron's sockets after the app quit. - "Only while MeshBay is open" is a real mode: the app starts a provisioned node at launch and stops the one it started when it quits. - Switching modes stops the node first -- deleting a task does not end its instance, and a new service found the port taken -- keeps the firewall rules every mode needs, and starts the node again. A declined or unanswered UAC prompt restores the node instead of leaving it stopped, and says that nothing changed. - waiting_for_hub counts as a node that is up; linking waits for a node that answers, with a longer deadline, and reports a version mismatch. Packaging (packaging/win): - The service task gets no 72-hour limit, runs on battery and ignores a second start; service.ps1 status reports a stale registration so setup re-registers it; remove ends the running instance before deleting the task. - build-node-runtime.ps1 starts the frozen daemon in a throwaway profile (smoke-node-runtime.ps1) instead of only asking for --help. The mode that was "Off (start manually)" is labelled "Only while MeshBay is open" in all ten catalogues. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5

fix(node): read the packaged TMDB token in place

2026-09-26T10:23:16Z

A node onboarded by the desktop client never ran `init`, so default.env was never copied to node.env; and default.env was 0600 root, unreadable to a per-user node anyway. The daemon now loads it beneath node.env, 0644. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5

feat(packaging): bundle ffmpeg in the Windows installer by default

2026-09-05T06:43:11Z

winget install ffmpeg was considered and rejected as the mechanism: it needs network access and winget/App Installer present at the exact moment setup runs, and its failure mode is silent -- video just does not stream, with nothing pointing back at ffmpeg. Not viable for a non-technical install. MeshBay transcodes browser-incompatible video to H.264 (-c:v libx264, webrtc_server.py) -- a real encode, not remux -- so this needs a genuine GPL ffmpeg build; no LGPL-only build includes an H.264 encoder, since libx264 itself is GPL. packaging/win/fetch-ffmpeg.ps1 (new) Downloads, checksum-verifies and stages ffmpeg for the build. Source: BtbN/FFmpeg-Builds' Windows x86_64 gpl-shared preset -- shared DLLs rather than two independent static binaries, which is what nearly tripled this: the "full" static build many devs already have via winget is ~220 MB *per executable*. Pinned to one dated release tag (immutable once published) and its own sha256, not the "latest" alias BtbN repoints on every auto-build -- verified by hand first (downloaded, hash matched, ran a real encode+probe with libx264) before pinning. ffplay.exe (an SDL2 player, ~17 MB) is dropped; MeshBay never invokes it. Cached after the first build. Runs its own smoke test (encode + probe a real clip) so a broken fetch fails at build time, not for the first user who tries to watch something. packaging/win/LICENSE-ffmpeg.txt (new) GPLv3 notice + where the corresponding source is, required because this redistributes a GPL binary even though it is unmodified and only ever invoked as a subprocess. Ships alongside ffmpeg.exe in the installer. build-node-runtime.ps1 / build-win.ps1 Bundling is now the DEFAULT, replacing the old opt-in -FfmpegDir (which copied from a local directory and left most builds without ffmpeg at all). -SkipFfmpeg opts out for a smaller, streaming-less local-iteration build. Also fixes a real bug the ffmpeg change exposed rather than caused: the final `--help` smoke test did `$help -notmatch "meshbay-node"` against $help captured as a PowerShell ARRAY (one element per line) -- -notmatch on a collection is a FILTER, not a boolean test, and returns the non-matching elements; any non-empty array is truthy in if() regardless of content. Once --help wrapped past one line (it now does, with autostart/service in the verb list) this threw unconditionally. Fixed by joining to one string before matching, and pinned by a new test so a future edit cannot silently reintroduce the collection-vs-scalar trap. Verified: downloaded and hashed the pinned release by hand (matches), ran a real libx264 encode + ffprobe against the extracted build, fetch-ffmpeg.ps1 end to end (161 MB staged), a full build-node-runtime.ps1 run (308 MB node-runtime/) and a full installer build (MeshBay-Setup- 1.0.0.exe, 210.8 MB with ffmpeg bundled). Node suite 850 pass / 25 skip. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5

fix(packaging): actually ship the TMDB token, on Linux and Windows

2026-09-04T12:33:33Z

default.env was empty in every build, for three independent reasons: 1. build-node.sh read QE/node.env, which does not exist. Even pointed at the real file it would have failed: its `grep MESHBAY_TMDB_DEFAULT_TOKEN=` cannot match QE/tmdb.txt, which is a free-form note, not KEY=VALUE. 2. Nothing consumed default.env. packaging/README.md and build-node.sh both claimed `meshbay-node init` copies it to /node.env; grep found the name in exactly two places, the README and the script that writes it. No code implemented the copy, and `EnvironmentFile=-` hid the absence. 3. build-win.ps1 had no env handling at all, so Windows was empty for a different reason than Linux. Now: the build extracts the v4 read token -- tmdb.py sends `Authorization: Bearer`, so it is the JWT, not the 32-char v3 key beside it in the same file -- matching KEY=VALUE first and then by shape, from MESHBAY_TMDB_TOKEN, MESHBAY_TMDB_TOKEN_FILE, QE/node.env, QE/tmdb.txt. It writes default.env 0600 and *fails the build* if no token resolves; MESHBAY_ALLOW_NO_TMDB=1 opts out. An empty default.env is invisible until a user opens Videos and finds no metadata, which is how this shipped empty on two platforms at once. platform.py gains packaged_default_env()/install_node_env()/load_node_env(). init copies the packaged file once, never overwriting an existing node.env, and the daemon loads node.env itself at startup: systemd does this on Linux via EnvironmentFile, but Windows autostart is a Startup-folder .vbs with no equivalent. Already-set variables always win. Also fixes an UnboundLocalError in main(): `config_dir` was assigned at the top of the init branch, which made it function-local for all of main(), while the reset branch calls `config_dir()` as the imported function. init returns before that line, so `meshbay-node reset` could only ever raise. The local is now cfg_dir. Verified end to end on Linux: token baked (239 chars), init writes /node.env 0600 with it. The PowerShell half is written but unrun -- no pwsh on this machine. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01DtfG7z6wHWj8RKHCvxQtY1

feat: Windows installer (W4) — one per-user NSIS package, client + node

2026-09-04T07:28:14Z

`npm run dist:win` produces MeshBay-Setup-.exe: the Electron client and, beside it under resources/node-runtime/, the frozen meshbay-node daemon (meshbay-common inside it). No hub. Per-user, no elevation — matches the W3 constraint that a logon-triggered scheduled task needs admin. electron-builder / package.json build.win nsis, build/icon.ico, extraResources -> node-runtime/ build.nsis oneClick:false perMachine:false allowElevation:false allowToChangeInstallationDirectory:true dist:win -> packaging/win/build-win.ps1 (mirrors dist -> build-client.sh) packaging/win/ meshbay-node.spec + node-entry.py PyInstaller freeze of meshbay_node.daemon:main. The awkward deps (aiortc, av, aioquic, pydantic_core, uvicorn, watchdog, guessit, blake3, tzdata) are pulled in whole with collect_all — that list is expected to grow when a frozen run raises ModuleNotFoundError. build-node-runtime.ps1 throwaway venv -> pip install -> PyInstaller -> packages/meshbay-client/node-runtime/ (gitignored) build-win.ps1 Node>=22 check, npm ci, Electron bump, sync-ui, node runtime, electron-builder --win nsis bump-electron.mjs the Chromium-CVE "build against latest Electron" policy, out of the PS script (5.1 here-string terminator rules) README.md PyInstaller, not the python-embed zip: the frozen meshbay-node.exe is a genuine relocatable single binary, which is what src/main.js:findNodeBinary spawns (process.resourcesPath/node-runtime/meshbay-node.exe when packaged) and what the W3 autostart launcher points at. The embeddable zip needs pip to make that wrapper and the wrapper bakes in an absolute interpreter path. build/installer.nsh: on uninstall, taskkill meshbay-node.exe and delete the W3 Startup .vbs (it would point wscript at a deleted binary every sign-in). %LOCALAPPDATA%\meshbay\ — node.toml, keystore.enc — is never touched. ffmpeg is not bundled by default (node finds it on PATH); build-win.ps1 -FfmpegDir copies ffmpeg.exe/ffprobe.exe in for a self-contained installer. Verified on the Windows guest: PyInstaller freeze builds first try (node-runtime 147 MB), frozen `meshbay-node status` talks to the live daemon's loopback API; electron-builder --win nsis produces MeshBay-Setup-0.1.0.exe (155 MB), oneClick/perMachine flags applied, node-runtime bundled at the path findNodeBinary expects. test_packaging_win.py (14) pins the config invariants and the NSIS <-> platform.py autostart seam. Node suite 798 pass / 34 skip. Open: Authenticode signing (13.9 — unsigned => SmartScreen), Windows CI (18.3), electron-updater. First clean-machine install + DPAPI + autostart round-trip is a manual check. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5