Angular Quickstart: Error: spawn EACCES

Question

I cloned Angular quickstart. then I ran npm install, and then npm start. This is what I got.

$ npm start

> [email protected] prestart /home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart
> npm run build


> [email protected] build /home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart
> tsc -p src/


> [email protected] start /home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart
> concurrently "npm run build:watch" "npm run serve"

[1] 
[1] > [email protected] serve /home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart
[1] > lite-server -c=bs-config.json
[1] 
[0] 
[0] > [email protected] build:watch /home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart
[0] > tsc -p src/ -w
[0] 
[1] ** browser-sync config **
[1] { injectChanges: false,
[1]   files: [ './**/*.{html,htm,css,js}' ],
[1]   watchOptions: { ignored: 'node_modules' },
[1]   server: 
[1]    { baseDir: 'src',
[1]      middleware: [ [Function], [Function] ],
[1]      routes: { '/node_modules': 'node_modules' } } }
[1] [Browsersync] Access URLs:
[1]  --------------------------------------
[1]        Local: http://localhost:3000
[1]     External: http://192.168.2.159:3000
[1]  --------------------------------------
[1]           UI: http://localhost:3001
[1]  UI External: http://192.168.2.159:3001
[1]  --------------------------------------
[1] [Browsersync] Serving files from: src
[1] internal/child_process.js:325
[1]     throw errnoException(err, 'spawn');
[1]     ^
[1] 
[1] Error: spawn EACCES
[1]     at _errnoException (util.js:1041:11)
[1]     at ChildProcess.spawn (internal/child_process.js:325:11)
[1]     at Object.exports.spawn (child_process.js:493:9)
[1]     at module.exports (/home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart/node_modules/opn/index.js:75:24)
[1]     at Object.open (/home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart/node_modules/browser-sync/lib/utils.js:186:9)
[1]     at Object.openBrowser (/home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart/node_modules/browser-sync/lib/utils.js:165:23)
[1]     at EventEmitter.service:running (/home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart/node_modules/browser-sync/lib/internal-events.js:42:23)
[1]     at emitOne (events.js:120:20)
[1]     at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:210:7)
[1]     at /home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart/node_modules/browser-sync/lib/browser-sync.js:260:19
[1] npm
[1]  ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
[1] npm ERR!
[1]  errno 1
[1] npm
[1]  ERR! [email protected] serve: `lite-server -c=bs-config.json`
[1] npm ERR! Exit status 1
[1] npm ERR! 
[1] npm
[1]  ERR! Failed at the [email protected] serve script.
[1] npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
[1] 
[1] npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
[1] npm ERR!     /home/ecarroll/.npm/_logs/2017-09-05T19_38_23_635Z-debug.log
[1] npm run serve exited with code 1
[0] 14:38:25 - Compilation complete. Watching for file changes.

contents of /home/ecarroll/.npm/_logs/2017-09-05T19_38_23_635Z-debug.log

0 info it worked if it ends with ok
1 verbose cli [ '/usr/local/bin/node', '/usr/local/bin/npm', 'run', 'serve' ]
2 info using [email protected]
3 info using [email protected]
4 verbose run-script [ 'preserve', 'serve', 'postserve' ]
5 info lifecycle [email protected]~preserve: [email protected]
6 info lifecycle [email protected]~serve: [email protected]
7 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~serve: unsafe-perm in lifecycle true
8 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~serve: PATH: /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/node-gyp-bin:/home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart/node_modules/.bin:/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/node-gyp-bin:/home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart/node_modules/.bin:/home/ecarroll/.config/composer/vendor/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin:/home/ecarroll/.fzf/bin
9 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~serve: CWD: /home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart
10 silly lifecycle [email protected]~serve: Args: [ '-c', 'lite-server -c=bs-config.json' ]
11 silly lifecycle [email protected]~serve: Returned: code: 1  signal: null
12 info lifecycle [email protected]~serve: Failed to exec serve script
13 verbose stack Error: [email protected] serve: `lite-server -c=bs-config.json`
13 verbose stack Exit status 1
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/index.js:280:16)
13 verbose stack     at emitTwo (events.js:125:13)
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:213:7)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/lib/spawn.js:55:14)
13 verbose stack     at emitTwo (events.js:125:13)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:213:7)
13 verbose stack     at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:927:16)
13 verbose stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:211:5)
14 verbose pkgid [email protected]
15 verbose cwd /home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart
16 verbose Linux 4.10.0-33-generic
17 verbose argv "/usr/local/bin/node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "run" "serve"
18 verbose node v8.4.0
19 verbose npm  v5.4.0
20 error code ELIFECYCLE
21 error errno 1
22 error [email protected] serve: `lite-server -c=bs-config.json`
22 error Exit status 1
23 error Failed at the [email protected] serve script.
23 error This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
24 verbose exit [ 1, true ]

Versions,

node --version
v8.4.0

npm --version
5.4.0

tsc --version
Version 2.5.2

If I try to exec lite-server manually, it's also failing

node ./node_modules/lite-server/bin/lite-server -c bs-config.json 
** browser-sync config **
{ injectChanges: false,
  files: [ './**/*.{html,htm,css,js}' ],
  watchOptions: { ignored: 'node_modules' },
  server: 
   { baseDir: 'src',
     middleware: [ [Function], [Function] ],
     routes: { '/node_modules': 'node_modules' } } }
[Browsersync] Access URLs:
 --------------------------------------
       Local: http://localhost:3000
    External: http://192.168.2.159:3000
 --------------------------------------
          UI: http://localhost:3001
 UI External: http://192.168.2.159:3001
 --------------------------------------
[Browsersync] Serving files from: src
internal/child_process.js:325
    throw errnoException(err, 'spawn');
    ^

Error: spawn EACCES
    at _errnoException (util.js:1041:11)
    at ChildProcess.spawn (internal/child_process.js:325:11)
    at Object.exports.spawn (child_process.js:493:9)
    at module.exports (/home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart/node_modules/opn/index.js:75:24)
    at Object.open (/home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart/node_modules/browser-sync/lib/utils.js:186:9)
    at Object.openBrowser (/home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart/node_modules/browser-sync/lib/utils.js:165:23)
    at EventEmitter.service:running (/home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart/node_modules/browser-sync/lib/internal-events.js:42:23)
    at emitOne (events.js:120:20)
    at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:210:7)
    at /home/ecarroll/code/angular/quickstart/node_modules/browser-sync/lib/browser-sync.js:260:19

Answer 1

Easy and best solution

1. Update npm so the problem doesn't happen again sudo npm update -g npm

2. Run this from the directory of the angular project.

   find ./node_modules/ -type f -name xdg-open -exec chmod a+x {} \;
   

   This gives xdg-open +x which permits npm start to open the browser to the applications url without throwing an exception.

Disable Opening the browser

Based on the suggestion in the comments by Tyler Christian, and similar to this answer, there is a file called bs-config.json

Change it from this,

{
  "server": {
    "baseDir": "src",
    "routes": {
      "/node_modules": "node_modules"
    }
  }
}

by adding the open parameter to this,

{
  "open": false,
  "server": {
    "baseDir": "src",
    "routes": {
      "/node_modules": "node_modules"
    }
  }
}

I will investigate now as to why this cryptic error is generated, and what the underlying problem is.

The bug, identified

And, here is the problem -- it's in the package opn. Thanks goes out to me for explaining how this error prone process works on March 14, 2017. Evan Carroll rocks.

• Patch created and submitted (update patch rejected)