Upgrading Chrome Checklist

This document is meant to serve as an overview of what steps are needed on each Chrome upgrade in Electron.

These are things to do in addition to updating the Electron code for any Chrome/Node API changes.

Verify the new Chrome version is available from https://github.com/zcbenz/chromium-source-tarball/releases
Update the VERSION file at the root of the electron/libchromiumcontent repository
Update the CLANG_REVISION in script/update-clang.sh to match the version Chrome is using in libchromiumcontent/src/tools/clang/scripts/update.py
Upgrade vendor/node to the Node release that corresponds to the v8 version being used in the new Chrome release. See the v8 versions in Node on https://nodejs.org/en/download/releases for more details
Upgrade vendor/crashpad for any crash reporter changes needed
Upgrade vendor/depot_tools for any build tools changes needed
Update the libchromiumcontent SHA-1 to download in script/lib/config.py
Open a pull request on electron/libchromiumcontent with the changes
Open a pull request on electron/brightray with the changes
- This should include upgrading the vendor/libchromiumcontent submodule
Open a pull request on electron/electron with the changes
- This should include upgrading the submodules in vendor/ as needed
Verify debug builds succeed on:
- macOS
- 32-bit Windows
- 64-bit Window
- 32-bit Linux
- 64-bit Linux
- ARM Linux
Verify release builds succeed on:
- macOS
- 32-bit Windows
- 64-bit Window
- 32-bit Linux
- 64-bit Linux
- ARM Linux
Verify tests pass on:
- macOS
- 32-bit Windows
- 64-bit Window
- 32-bit Linux
- 64-bit Linux
- ARM Linux

Verify ffmpeg Support

Electron ships with a version of ffmpeg that includes proprietary codecs by default. A version without these codecs is built and distributed with each release as well. Each Chrome upgrade should verify that switching this version is still supported.

You can verify Electron’s support for multiple ffmpeg builds by loading the following page. It should work with the default ffmpeg library distributed with Electron and not work with the ffmpeg library built without proprietary codecs.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Proprietary Codec Check</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>Checking if Electron is using proprietary codecs by loading video from http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/videos/big_buck_bunny.mp4</p>
    <p id="outcome"></p>
    <video style="display:none" src="http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/videos/big_buck_bunny.mp4" rel="external nofollow"  autoplay></video>
    <script>
      const video = document.querySelector('video')
      video.addEventListener('error', ({target}) => {
        if (target.error.code === target.error.MEDIA_ERR_SRC_NOT_SUPPORTED) {
          document.querySelector('#outcome').textContent = 'Not using proprietary codecs, video emitted source not supported error event.'
        } else {
          document.querySelector('#outcome').textContent = `Unexpected error: ${target.error.code}`
        }
      })
      video.addEventListener('playing', () => {
        document.querySelector('#outcome').textContent = 'Using proprietary codecs, video started playing.'
      })
    </script>
  </body>
</html>

Upgrading Chrome Checklist

Upgrading Chrome Checklist

Verify ffmpeg Support

Links