'npm run app' fails on Windows

[paulbatum]

Followed the instructions, but my install is only partially working:

• npm run deploy works fine (it completes successfully and the resulting binary works great)
• npm run app fails with the following error:

E:\code\mm3
λ npm run app

> [email protected] app E:\code\mm3
> nodewebkit _public


events.js:72
        throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
              ^
Error: spawn ENOENT
    at errnoException (child_process.js:988:11)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (child_process.js:779:34)

npm ERR! [email protected] app: `nodewebkit _public`
npm ERR! Exit status 8
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] app script.
npm ERR! This is most likely a problem with the node-webkit-hipster-seed package,
npm ERR! not with npm itself.
npm ERR! Tell the author that this fails on your system:
npm ERR!     nodewebkit _public
npm ERR! You can get their info via:
npm ERR!     npm owner ls node-webkit-hipster-seed
npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.
npm ERR! System Windows_NT 6.2.9200
npm ERR! command "node.exe" "D:\\tools\\nodist\\bin\\node_modules\\npm\\cli.js" "run" "app"
npm ERR! cwd E:\code\mm3
npm ERR! node -v v0.10.26
npm ERR! npm -v 1.4.6
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     E:\code\mm3\npm-debug.log
npm ERR! not ok code 0

I'm not sure if its related, but if I run npm run compiler I get the following output:

E:\code\mm3
λ npm run compiler

> [email protected] compiler E:\code\mm3
> brunch watch -P

13 Apr 01:03:01 - error: { [Error: Component must have "E:\code\mm3\bower_components\console-polyfill\bower.json"] code: 'NO_BOWER_JSON' }
13 Apr 01:03:01 - error: Compiling of 'app\styles\app.less' failed. '/bower_components/bootstrap-less/less/reset.less' wasn't found

I tried from powershell/gitbash/cmd, got the same result in all cases. I'm running Windows 8.1 x64

[ackzell]

Hi @paulbatum, for the compiling problem, yo might want to run bower install. That fixed for me.

I have the same setup as you, not been able to fix the npm run app yet.

[paulbatum]

Thanks @ackzell that did fix the compilation problem, but yes it sounds like we both still can't npm run app.

[paulbatum]

OK @ackzell I think I'm closer to figuring this out. If you look inside the node_modules\nodewebkit\nodewebkit folder it will be empty, and this is the reason why npm run app is failing. You should be able to fix this yourself by by going to the node_modules\nodewebkit dir and running node scripts\install.js. When this completes, the aformentioned folder should contain various binaries including nw.exe, and now npm run app will succeed.

I tried to find out how I got into this broken state, by running the skeleton again and looking at the output. This seems like where the error occurred:

> [email protected] postinstall E:\code\mm5\node_modules\nodewebkit
> node scripts/install.js

http://dl.node-webkit.org/v0.8.5/node-webkit-v0.8.5-win-ia32.zip [||        ] 23 %
16 Apr 18:16:00 - error: Error: npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/javascript-brunch
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/coffee-script

I have no idea why the install script failed as part of the skeleton but works fine when executed separately.

[ackzell]

Awesome @paulbatum!!
I'm not sure either why it didn't work. I'm not too familiar with brunch yet. But it's a good thing we were able to get this working. Thanks a lot for sharing your findings.

[stephan-nordnes-eriksen]

I had the same issue. I solved it by deleting the node_modules/nodewebkit folder and then running npm install nodewebkit again.

Note: there appears to be an issue with nodewebkit where you need to rename the node_modules/nodewebkit/package.json to node_modules/nodewebkit/_package.json (with an _) to get the app to run properly.