pluginOptions.electronBuilder.externals doesn't work as expected

[bruceauyeung]

because of module node-bindings's limitation, module ffi and ref must not be packed ( or must be used as externals ) by webpack, otherwise it will failed with error Could not load the bindings file , so i configured as this comment suggested.
my vue.config.js:

const { resolve } = require('path');
module.exports = {
  configureWebpack: config => {
    config.devtool = 'source-map';
    config.optimization.minimizer[0].options.terserOptions.keep_classnames = true;
    config.optimization.minimizer[0].options.terserOptions.keep_fnames = true;
    config.optimization.minimizer[0].options.terserOptions.compress.drop_debugger = true;
    config.externals['ffi'] = "require('ffi')";
    config.externals['ref'] = "require('ref')";
  },
  pluginOptions: {
    electronBuilder: {
      chainWebpackMainProcess: config => {
      },
      externals: ['ffi', 'ref', 'shortcut-capture', 'winston', 'winston-daily-rotate-file'],
      builderOptions: {
        extraFiles: ['lib'],
        extraResources: ['workbench-v*.asar', 'preloads'],
      },
    },
  },
};

but these two lines are mandatory to make ffi and ref work even when i have already configured pluginOptions.electronBuilder.externals.

config.externals['ffi'] = "require('ffi')";
config.externals['ref'] = "require('ref')";

thi is not like what you said in this comment

To Reproduce
none

Expected behavior
no need to configure

config.externals['ffi'] = "require('ffi')";
config.externals['ref'] = "require('ref')";

when i have configured pluginOptions.electronBuilder.externals

Environment (please complete the following information):

• OS and version: CentOS 7.4 64bit
• node version: 12.4.0
• npm version: not used
• yarn version (if used): 1.19.0
• vue-cli-plugin-electron-builder version : 1.4.3
• electron version: 6.1.4
• other vue plugins used:
• custom config for vcp-electron-builder:
• (if possible) link to your repo:

[WingDust]

i am want use win32-api as same question
win32-api is use node-bindings ,I also add

    pluginOptions: {
        webpackBundleAnalyzer: {
            openAnalyzer: false
        }, 
        electronBuilder: {
            externals: ['win32-api','bindings'],
            nodeModulesPath: ['../../node_modules', './node_modules']
        }
    }

[uskithub]

Try this:

    config.externals(['ffi', 'ref']);

You should see https://github.com/neutrinojs/webpack-chain .

[nklayman]

@bruceauyeung can you try again with the latest version of this plugin (preferably the 2.0 beta)? I tried to reproduce your issue and it worked fine, all I had to do was set the externals array. I think I remember being able to reproduce your error a while ago, and I think I may have fixed it accidently.

[no-response]

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