Minifer.js not found; nodebb.min.js not created

danielflippance

I'm seeing the following error when starting NodeBB on my production server:

module.js:340
    throw err;
          ^
Error: Cannot find module '/minifier.js'
at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:338:15)
at Function.Module._load (module.js:280:25)
at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:497:10)
at startup (node.js:119:16)
at node.js:935:3

The same code runs correctly on dev and our staging server (Heroku). We are running on Ubuntu and NodeBB is being started by Upstart. As far as I can tell the minifer code is in place - this is the file on the prod server:

1623 Mar 21 12:39 minifier.js

I've run npm install in the nodebb folder and everything is up to date. Here is the verbose log from NodeBB:

21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: NodeBB v0.9.2 Copyright (C) 2013-2014 NodeBB Inc.
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: 
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: Time: Mon Mar 21 2016 13:12:54 GMT-0500 (PET)
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: Initializing NodeBB v0.9.2
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: Environment: production
21/3 13:12 [24179] - verbose: * using mongo store at xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxx
21/3 13:12 [24179] - verbose: * using themes stored in: /var/www/blahblahblah/node_modules
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: [database] Checking database indices.
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: Checking dependencies for outdated modules
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [notifications.init] Registering jobs.
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [meta/css] Minifying LESS/CSS
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [sounds] Sounds OK
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [meta/templates] Compiling templates
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [meta/templates] Successfully compiled templates.
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [meta/css] admin.css committed to disk.
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [meta/css] stylesheet.css committed to disk.

The log always stops at this point. It seems to be the case that the following line in webserver.js fails:

async.apply(!skipJS ? meta.js.minify : meta.js.getFromFile, app.enabled('minification')),

The user running nodeBB has write permission to the /public folder where the nodebb.min.js will be created.

Interestingly, if I manually add the nodebb.min.js to the /public folder, hack that line to force meta.js.getFromFIle, NodeBB starts but the login page is blank apart from the header and there are no JS script errors.

danielflippance

It's failing on this line in /src/meta/js.js:

var minifier = Meta.js.minifierProc = fork('minifier.js', [], forkProcessParams),

Are there some special permissions or configuration I need to setup to allow a process to be forked?

I've tried running node with each of the following command lines, both giving similar results:

exec node $LIVE_DIR/loader.js --no-silent --no-daemon >> /var/log/blahblahblah/nodebb.log
exec node $LIVE_DIR/app.js >> /var/log/blahblahblah/nodebb.log

danielflippance

Found the answer - The script starting NodeBB must be in the nodebb directory otherwise the minifier will fail as above. Changed my Upstart script as follows:

cd $LIVE_DIR
exec node app.js >> /var/log/blahblahblah/nodebb.log