Task Runner Explorer window had "failed to load" under my Gulpfile.js and none of the build processes were listed

node.js visual-studio gulp load gulp-sourcemaps
SharpCode picture SharpCode · Oct 17, 2016 · Viewed 17.6k times · Source

This happened randomly as I was updating my CSS file and then refreshing to notice no changes were being shown. I eventually noticed that Task Runner Explorer window had "failed to load" under my Gulpfile.js and none of the build processes were listed.

I then done a bit of research and reordered the list of external tools as some SO threads have mentioned to do and nothing. I then noticed that gulpfile.js required some files :

var gulp = require("gulp"),
   gulpless = require("gulp-less"),
   sourcemaps = require("gulp-sourcemaps"),
   rimraf = require("rimraf");

None of these were in the node_modules folder so I done npm install gulp-less and npm install gulp-sourcemaps and now checked in Output>Task Runner Explorer and have the following error.

Failed to run "C:\projects\Fusion\FusionMVC\Gulpfile.js"...

cmd.exe /c gulp --tasks-simple

C:\projects\Fusion\node_modules\gulp-sourcemaps\node_modules\strip-.bom\index.js:2

module.exports = x => { ^ SyntaxError: Unexpected token > at Module._compile (module.js:439:25) at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:474:10) at Module.load (module.js:356:32) at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12) at Module.require (module.js:364:17) at require (module.js:380:17) at Object. (C:\projects\Fusion\node_modules\gulp-sourcemaps\src\init.js:10:14) at Module._compile (module.js:456:26) at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:474:10) at Module.load (module.js:356:32) at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)

Any clues or solutions as to what might be wrong and how to get it working would be great! Gone through most of the SO threads and that solution did not work.

Answer

SharpCode picture SharpCode · Oct 18, 2016

So after tonnes of research, working through SO threads and npm tutorials I finally found the issue. It looks like the PATH variable (not sure if it used the system or user level one) might have been incorrect. I have never touched them but after adding a direct path to the locally installed packages folder and putting it at the top of the external tools locations list it worked.

locations of external tools - options dialog

A few things to look for though before even worrying about the path would be:

  • ensure that all the correct npm packages are installed
  • gulpfile.js code is correct
  • node.js and npm are both up to date

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