gulp command giving errors of modules can not find

Question

I am trying to set up the basic aurelia app on windows. I have followed instructions from: http://aurelia.io/get-started.html, which includes:

1. Installed node js
2. Installed the gulp using: npm install -g gulp
3. Installed jspn by using: npm install -g jspm
4. Then downloaded the sample source code from https://github.com/aurelia/skeleton-navigation/releases to the project folder.
5. Opened a console and changed to project directory ie. navigation-app
6. Executed the command : npm install
7. Executed the command: jspm install -y
8. Finally launched the server using command: gulp watch

All above steps are completed successfully except step 8, which is giving an error :

E:\aurelia\navigation-app>gulp watch
module.js:338
    throw err;
          ^
Error: Cannot find module 'debug/node'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:336:15)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:278:25)
    at Module.require (module.js:365:17)
    at require (module.js:384:17)
    at Object.<anonymous> (E:\aurelia\navigation-app\node_modules\gulp-babel\nod
e_modules\babel-core\lib\babel\util.js:22:34)
    at Module._compile (module.js:460:26)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:478:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:355:32)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:310:12)
    at Module.require (module.js:365:17)
    at require (module.js:384:17)

I am not getting why it can not find modules. If I install that module manually it gives error message for another module when I try to run : gulp watch

Answer 1

I have also been battling this problem since upgrading Aurelia and related tools to the latest versions. It may be related to path length/depth issues on Windows with the native Module.require.

When I uninstalled the following packages from the project's local node_modules folder and instead installed them in the global NPM cache (which lives at a more shallow directory depth in my case), gulp build started working again:

npm uninstall gulp-babel
npm uninstall browser-sync
npm uninstall karma

npm install -g gulp-babel
npm install -g browser-sync
npm install -g karma

Answer 2

I had the exact same error, and since debug/node is not actually a package, I was very confused for days. But this is the solution that worked for me. Pretty dumb and easy, but I'm re-posting here hoping that it will save someone else's days..

In short, the solution is to remove the node_modules folder inside the application and running npm install again.

Answer 3

Likely the problem is that you're not running NPM v3...

You might find these installation instructions useful if you're having trouble getting Aurelia installed and running on Windows.

(Additional details can be found at http://www.alexdresko.com/2015/11/24/getting-started-with-aurelia-on-windows-10/)

1. install chocolatey
2. choco install git -y
3. Configure git
4. choco install python2 -y
5. create python environment variable
6. echo %python% to make sure the environment variable is created and working.
7. npm install -g gulp
8. npm install -g jspm
9. mkdir c:\code\aureliatest (or some test directory)
10. cd c:\code\aureliatest
11. npm install -g yo generator-aurelia
12. install visual studio community (CORRECLTY) https://www.visualstudio.com/en- us/downloads/post-install-vs?campaign=ct!!223A5085247E47A1A9F37AA43E69C2A5
13. choco install googlechrome -y
14. yo aurelia
15. gulp watch

Answer 4

I had the same issue. Gulp watch resulted in "missing socket.io". Apparently browser-sync, that has socket.io as a dependency, didn't install completely/properly. If you run npm install in root of your project it wont check for dependencies of your dependencies. You have to run npm install in the folder of the module with the missing dependencies. Chances are you will do this for a few times(I sure did)