Task Runner Explorer can't load tasks

Question

I'm using VS2015 and Gulp. I open the Task Runner Explorer and hit refresh, and this shows up in the log:

Failed to run "C:\Projects\Test\Gulpfile.js"...
cmd.exe /c gulp --tasks-simple
Error: `libsass` bindings not found in C:\Projects\Test\node_modules\gulp-sass\node_modules\node-sass\vendor\win32-ia32-11\binding.node. Try reinstalling `node-sass`?
    at Object.sass.getBinaryPath (C:\Projects\Test\node_modules\gulp-sass\node_modules\node-sass\lib\extensions.js:148:11)
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Projects\Test\node_modules\gulp-sass\node_modules\node-sass\lib\index.js:16:36)
    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)
    at Module.require (module.js:364:17)
    at require (module.js:380:17)
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Projects\Test\node_modules\gulp-sass\index.js:163:21)
    at Module._compile (module.js:456:26)

So I try to run cmd.exe /c gulp --tasks-simple in PowerShell, in the same directory, and it works fine - it returns a list of tasks.

I'm also able to run my SASS-related tasks just fine, so I'm not sure why this is complaining about SASS when it's being run via VS but not directly on the command line.

Answer 1

I had the same problem migrating from VS2013 recently.

As Josh noted in his comment here Visual Studio 2015 ships with an older version of Node. In case you don't want to get stuck with whatever version of Node is built into Visual Studio, you can tell it to use the version you have already installed.

• Go to: Tools > Options > Projects and Solutions > External Web Tools
• Reorder so that $(PATH) is above $(DevEnvDir)\Extensions\Microsoft\Web Tools\External

This also applies to other tools like Grunt, Bower and Gulp.

Found this solution by Mads Kristensen here.

For Visual Studio 2017, we can find the setting at
Tools > Options > Projects and Solutions > Web Package Management > External Web Tools