forge: Built-in templates do not start

@VerteDinde I found the issue. When create-electron-app is installed, it installs forge as a dependency. When create-electron-app is run, it calls @electron-forge\cli\dist\electron-forge-init.js, which ultimately copies the package.json from create-electron-app’s package.json and runs npm install / yarn install.

In other words: the forge version you get depends on when create-electron-app was first run on your system. The same applies for any other dependencies, like @vercel/webpack-asset-relocator-loader as you can see in the comments above. Since @electron-forge/plugin-webpack is pinned in the package.json, that specific (and probably outdated) version is always installed.

When I run create-electron-app on npm instead of Yarn, I get beta-59. You’re getting the latest version because the computers you’re testing on never ran create-electron-app before.

No global electron-forge here:

Oddly, when I do a fresh install with yarn create electron-app test2 --template=webpack on Windows, it pins plugin-webpack to 6.0.0-beta.64, not 6.0.0-beta.69 as OP. So the version I’m getting is also wrong, but different:

{
  "name": "test2",
  "productName": "test2",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "My Electron application description",
  "main": ".webpack/main",
  "scripts": {
    "start": "electron-forge start",
    "package": "electron-forge package",
    "make": "electron-forge make",
    "publish": "electron-forge publish",
    "lint": "echo \"No linting configured\""
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "license": "MIT",
  "config": {
    "forge": {
      "packagerConfig": {},
      "makers": [
        {
          "name": "@electron-forge/maker-squirrel",
          "config": {
            "name": "test2"
          }
        },
        {
          "name": "@electron-forge/maker-zip",
          "platforms": [
            "darwin"
          ]
        },
        {
          "name": "@electron-forge/maker-deb",
          "config": {}
        },
        {
          "name": "@electron-forge/maker-rpm",
          "config": {}
        }
      ],
      "plugins": [
        [
          "@electron-forge/plugin-webpack",
          {
            "mainConfig": "./webpack.main.config.js",
            "renderer": {
              "config": "./webpack.renderer.config.js",
              "entryPoints": [
                {
                  "html": "./src/index.html",
                  "js": "./src/renderer.js",
                  "name": "main_window",
                  "preload": {
                    "js": "./src/preload.js"
                  }
                }
              ]
            }
          }
        ]
      ]
    }
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@electron-forge/cli": "^6.0.0-beta.64",
    "@electron-forge/maker-deb": "^6.0.0-beta.64",
    "@electron-forge/maker-rpm": "^6.0.0-beta.64",
    "@electron-forge/maker-squirrel": "^6.0.0-beta.64",
    "@electron-forge/maker-zip": "^6.0.0-beta.64",
    "@electron-forge/plugin-webpack": "6.0.0-beta.64",
    "@vercel/webpack-asset-relocator-loader": "1.7.0",
    "css-loader": "^6.0.0",
    "electron": "21.2.0",
    "node-loader": "^2.0.0",
    "style-loader": "^3.0.0"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "electron-squirrel-startup": "^1.0.0"
  }
}

I’m getting a different error because of the old plugin syntax used in beta-64:

PS E:\Documents\Erik\New folder\test2> yarn start
yarn run v1.22.5
$ electron-forge start
√ Checking your system
√ Locating Application

An unhandled rejection has occurred inside Forge:
Error: Expected plugin to either be a plugin instance or a { name, config } object but found @electron-forge/plugin-webpack,[object Object]

Electron Forge was terminated. Location:
{}
error Command failed with exit code 1.
info Visit https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/cli/run for documentation about this command.