Windows ‘wails build’ application not printing console output, but ‘go run .’ works fine

[777yyy]

Title: Windows wails build application not printing console output, but go run . works fine

Description:

I'm working on a simple Wails application on Windows and encountered the following issue:

1. Steps Taken:

   • I used wails init -n MyTestApp to create a new Wails project.
   • After creating the project, I added command-line argument checking logic in main.go to print the version information via -v or --version.

2. Issue:

   • When I run go run . -v, the application correctly prints the version information App Version: 1.0.0.
   • However, after running wails build and executing the .exe file with -v parameter (.\build\bin\MyTestApp.exe -v), no output is displayed in the console.

3. Expected Behavior:

   • I expect that whether running with go run . or using the wails build generated .exe, passing --version or -v should print the version information in the console and not launch the GUI window.

4. Actual Behavior:

   • When running go run . -v, the version information is correctly printed in the console.
   • After running wails build and executing the generated .exe file with -v parameter, there is no output in the console.

5. main.go Code:
   Here’s the main.go code that I am using:

   package main
   
   import (
       "embed"
       "fmt"
       "os"
   
       "github.com/wailsapp/wails/v2"
       "github.com/wailsapp/wails/v2/pkg/options"
       "github.com/wailsapp/wails/v2/pkg/options/assetserver"
   )
   
   //go:embed all:frontend/dist
   var assets embed.FS
   
   func main() {
       // Create an instance of the app structure
       app := NewApp()
   
       if len(os.Args) > 1 {
           // We have arguments, so start terminal mode
           fmt.Println("App Version: 1.0.0")
           os.Exit(0) // Exit after printing version info
       }
   
       // Create application with options
       err := wails.Run(&options.App{
           Title:  "MyTestApp",
           Width:  1024,
           Height: 768,
           AssetServer: &assetserver.Options{
               Assets: assets,
           },
           BackgroundColour: &options.RGBA{R: 27, G: 38, B: 54, A: 1},
           OnStartup:        app.startup,
           Bind: []interface{}{
               app,
           },
       })
   
       if err != nil {
           println("Error:", err.Error())
       }
   }

6. Execution Flow:

   • wails init -n MyTestApp
   • cd MyTestApp
   • wails build
   • Execute .\build\bin\MyTestApp.exe -v – No output in the console
   • Execute go run . -v – Outputs App Version: 1.0.0

Build Options

Platform(s)        | windows/amd64
Compiler           | C:\Program Files\Go\bin\go.exe
Skip Bindings      | false
Build Mode         | production
Devtools           | false
Frontend Directory | D:\test\MyTestApp\frontend
Obfuscated         | false
Obfuscated         | false
Skip Frontend      | false
Obfuscated         | false
Skip Frontend      | false
Compress           | false
Package            | true
Clean Bin Dir      | false
LDFlags            |
LDFlags            |
Tags               | []
Tags               | []
Race Detector      | false
Race Detector      | false

7. Problem:

   • Why does the application built with wails build not print the version information in the console? Is there any specific configuration or behavior that causes the command-line arguments not to be correctly handled when running the built .exe?

8. Environment:

   • Wails version: Wails CLI v2.10.1
   • Operating system: Windows 10
   • Go version: go version go1.23.4 windows/amd64

---

Goal:

Through this question, I hope to understand how to ensure that the application built with wails build works correctly in the command line and prints version information when the -v parameter is passed, instead of launching the GUI window.

[Pankaj-SinghR]

I'm having this problem too. I want to use both the command line and the GUI. Is there a solution for this?