fixing nilpointer dereference issue

statefile/load.go

@@ -20,29 +20,29 @@ type State struct {
 	InstallationID string `json:"installationId"` // a UUIDv4 string
 }
 
-func LoadState() (*State, error) {
+func LoadState() (State, error) {
+	currentState := createState()
+
 	stateFilePath := filepath.Join(constants.InternalDir(), updateStateFileName)
 	// get the state file
 	_, err := os.Stat(stateFilePath)
 	if err != nil {
-		return nil, err
+		return currentState, err
 	}
 
 	stateFileContent, err := ioutil.ReadFile(stateFilePath)
 	if err != nil {
 		fmt.Println("Could not read update state file")
-		return nil, err
+		return currentState, err
 	}
 
-	currentState := State{}
-
 	err = json.Unmarshal(stateFileContent, &currentState)
 	if err != nil {
 		fmt.Println("Could not parse update state file")
-		return nil, err
+		return currentState, err
 	}
 
-	return &currentState, nil
+	return currentState, nil
 }
 
 func createState() State {

task/runner.go

@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ import (
 const minimumMinutesBetweenChecks = 1440 // 1 day
 
 type Runner struct {
-	currentState *statefile.State
+	currentState statefile.State
 	shouldRun    bool
 }
 
@@ -52,9 +52,6 @@ func (r *Runner) runAsyncJob(job func(), wg *sync.WaitGroup) {
 
 func (r *Runner) getShouldRun() bool {
 	now := time.Now()
-	if r.currentState == nil {
-		return true
-	}
 	if r.currentState.LastCheck == "" {
 		return true
 	}