I’m super new to Rust, like a day old really.

But I tried a program made in Rust on Windows, and it refuses to work.

Never prints anything. Just straight up instantly dead. Long story short, this thing relies on some linked stuff like ffmpeg in some form. So, I did my best trying to gather all the things it needs per github issues, reddit and other souces. And the end result was that it now spent 0.1 s longer before crashing, actually leaving time for some error in the Windows Event log. Nothing useful there either as far as I can see.

So I clone the repo and get the required things to compile Rust, and I managed to build it from source at least. The executable doesn’t run, but the Run in VS Code works, somehow. It prints the error messages corresponding to missing input. So i try to debug it, but nothing happens. No breakpoint is hit, and nothing is printed in the terminal, unlike when using Run or cargo Run. I can also just strip out everything it does in the file the main function is in, and it will hit breakpoints. But that didn’t help me find out what is missing/broken though.

So what the difference, is there a way to catch and prevent Rust from just going silent, and actually tell you what dependencies it failed to load?

My entire reason for getting it running locally is to fix that. Because no one sane wants to deal with a program that doesn’t tell you why it will not run… And when debugging also does nothing… I’m out of ideas.

The program is called Av1an for reference, and it’s a video encoding tool. I used a python version before they migrated to Rust, and wanted to give it a try again.

Edit: Wrote linked library, but i think the proper term is dynamic libraries. I’m really not good with compiled programs.

Update: Figured it out. Had to copy the out files from the ffmpeg compiled stuff back to the executable. Apparently Cargo Run includes that location when looing for the files, while running from the command line clearly doesn’t.

But the biggest whiplash, was that I got a full windows dialog popup when i tried to in the exectuable in CMD instead of Powershell. Told me the exact file I was missing too. I know PowerShell is a bitch when piping stuff, but I’m amazed no other program or error message could hand me that vital information. Fuck me, I wish I had tried that from the start…

  • @SorteKaninA
    7•11 months ago

    What do you mean “the executable doesn’t run”? What error messages are you getting? Showing actual code or error message would probably get you more help.

    • @BehindTheBarrier@programming.devOP
      1•11 months ago

      I can show you something after work, if I remember to. The gist of my issue is, a compiled executable doesn’t give any error at all or anything else. It’s because of missing dlls, and I want to find out what and how to prevent it so that the program does tell you why it is not working. If that is even possible.

      I can compile the source, and it magically works with cargo run, but otherwise not. Debugging is completely silent, doesn’t seem like it even notices the process.

      • @BehindTheBarrier@programming.devOP
        1•11 months ago

        Here’s how it looks when ran from Powershell:

        PS C:\Users\Username\RustProjects\Av1an> cargo run --release -- -i .\test.webm
    Finished release [optimized] target(s) in 0.31s
     Running `target\release\av1an.exe -i .\test.webm`
INFO [av1an_core::context] Input: 2560x1440 @ 60.000 fps, YUV420P, SDR
Scene detection
00:00:02 ▐████████████████████████▒                                                   ▌  32% 226/697 (89.17 fps, eta 5s)
error: process didn't exit successfully: `target\release\av1an.exe -i .\test.webm` (exit code: 0xc000013a, STATUS_CONTROL_C_EXIT)
PS C:\Users\Username\RustProjects\Av1an> .\target\release\av1an.exe -i .\test.webm
PS C:\Users\Username\RustProjects\Av1an> cd .\target\release\
PS C:\Users\Username\RustProjects\Av1an\target\release> .\av1an.exe -i ..\..\test.webm

        Running from the very same Powershell window. Take note that there is nothing for the normal lines because it’s instant death, not even a split second stutter before powershell is ready for a new command. The cargo run works, so why doesn’t a release compiled executable do the same, when it’s using the same file? What difference does cargo run make?