electron 5.0.0 "Uncaught ReferenceError: require is not defined"

Question

I had initially been using electron stable (4.x.x), and was able to use require in both my browser and renderer processes. I upgraded to electron beta (5.0.0) because I needed a newer version of node and encountered this error message in my renderer process, Uncaught ReferenceError: require is not defined.

Googling and looking through the electron docs, I found comments saying the error could be caused by setting webPreferences.nodeIntegration to false when initializing the BrowserWindow; e.g.: new BrowserWindow({width, height, webPreferences: {nodeIntegration: false}});. But I was not doing this, so I thought something else must be the issue and continued searching for a resolution.

Answer 1

For Electron version 12 and above

const electron = require("electron");

const { app, BrowserWindow } = electron;

app.on("ready", () => {
  const mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({
    width: 1000,
    height: 600,
    webPreferences: {
      nodeIntegration: true,
      contextIsolation: false,
      enableRemoteModule: true,
    },
  });
  mainWindow.loadURL(`file://${__dirname}/index.html`);
});