Mailspring becomes unresponsive when installing a plugin

system · March 3, 2021, 3:18am

Description

When I install a plugin through the Developer menu, Mailspring becomes unresponsive to typing and clicks until the “Plugin installed! tada” dialog appears. At that point, I can dismiss the dialog, and Mailspring is responsive again.

To Reproduce…

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

Go to the hamburger menu
Click on “Developer”
Click on “Install a Plugin…”
Choose a directory with a plugin in it
Mailspring freezes until plugin is installed

Expected Behavior

I should be able to use Mailspring while a plugin is installing.

Screenshots

Here’s a sequence of screenshots demonstrating the issue.

Installing a plugin

Mailspring stops responding

Plugin installation finishes

Mailspring is responsive (I can select text)

Setup

OS and Version: Windows 10 Education Version 2004, build 19041.388, Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2202.130.0
Mailspring Version: 1.7.8-13635bcf

Additional Context

This is not related to a particular email provider.

I am unsure of the cause of the issue, but it would seem that plugin directories are copied synchronously during plugin installation. I imagine this might cause problems when there’s a large node_modules/ folder inside a plugin. Relevant code:

github.com

Foundry376/Mailspring/blob/052f6dd5fe51a0ebddc19d3f8afc54237440dff9/app/src/package-manager.ts#L186


      localized(
        `The plugin or theme you selected has not been upgraded to support Mailspring. If you're the developer, update the package.json's engines field to include "mailspring".\n\nFor more information, see this migration guide: %@`,
        `http://support.getmailspring.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001918391`
      )
    )
  );
}

// copy the package into a new directory based on it's name
const packageFinalDir = path.join(this.configDirPath, 'packages', json.name);
fs.copySync(packagePath, packageFinalDir);

// activate the package
const pkg = new Package(packageFinalDir);
this.available[pkg.name] = pkg;
if (pkg.isTheme()) {
  AppEnv.themes.setActiveTheme(pkg.name);
} else {
  this.activatePackage(pkg);
}
callback(null, pkg.name);

(Originally posted by jmanuel1 on GitHub.)