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21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: Checking dependencies for outdated modules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