Please set env variable PHANTOMJS_BIN

[AquilaSagitta]

Can't get phantomjs to launch. I have installed karma and karma-phantomjs-launcher both locally and globally. I've tried reverting the versions and manually setting the environment variable but it still doesn't work. I can launch karma-chrome-launcher no problem but would prefer to use phantomjs. Is this a problem with phantomjs itself?

Windows 7, node 0.12, karma 12.31, karma-phantomjs-launcher 0.1.4, phantomjs 1.9.16

Any help is appreciated!

[dignifiedquire]

Does phantomjs work for you independently of karma?

[AquilaSagitta]

yup just installed phantomjs 2.0 from their site and did the quick start

[nfantone]

Same issue here.

INFO [karma]: Karma v0.12.36 server started at http://localhost:9099/
INFO [launcher]: Starting browser PhantomJS
ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS
    Can not find the binary node_modules/karma-phantomjs-launcher/node_modules/.bin/phantomjs
    Please set env variable PHANTOMJS_BIN

Ironically, exporting PHANTOMJS_BIN to some existing path seems to have no effect whatsoever. The issue is resolved by manually installing karma-phantomjs-launcher dependencies, by means of:

nfantone@thinkpad-t430 ~/dev/js/myproject $ cd node_modules/karma-phantomjs-launcher/
nfantone@thinkpad-t430 ~/dev/js/myproject/node_modules/karma-phantomjs-launcher $ npm install

This actually installs the expected phantomjs binary at ./bin, and makes tests run without problems.

---

• Using local dependencies:

    "phantomjs": "^1.9.17",
    "karma": "^0.12.36",
    "karma-phantomjs-launcher": "^0.2.0"

• No global npm binaries are installed (with -g).
• npm version: 2.11.1.

[dignifiedquire]

Could you show me the output of npm ls in the failing case please?

[nfantone]

Of course, here it is.

...and here is the output of the working scenario with the "extraneous" packages, after the manual installation of dependencies. Just in case.

[dignifiedquire]

Okay it's as I expected, due to deduplication and being a peerDependency the phantomjs package gets moved to the top level, and so the path to it is node_modules/phantomjs instead of the expected node_modules/karma-phantomjs-launcher/node_modules/phantomjs.
Will have to fix the path detection in here. Thanks for your help in tracking this down.

[nfantone]

You are welcome. Glad to help.

[dignifiedquire]

Okay so it looks like it's not us :( We are just using require('phantomjs').path which should export the correct path to the binary, but it looks like it doesn't in your case.
Could you do me a favor and open an issue here: https://github.com/Medium/phantomjs/issues with a reference to here.

[nfantone]

Are you positive on this, @dignifiedquire ? I have debugged the plugin and it seems as if require('phantomjs').path holds what it's expected to hold: the value of $PHANTOMJS_BIN. This property contains a correct path to a valid phantomjs binary. However, it does not seem to be using it, at all, during the execution.

[dignifiedquire]

No I'm not sure as I can't reproduce it on my machine :/ which os/node version are you on?

[nfantone]

• Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca".
• Latest 0.12.4 node.

[dignifiedquire]

@AquilaSagitta could you please provide the full log output with log level set to DEBUG

[dignifiedquire]

@nfantone could you please test the version in my pr #78 ? (You should be able to install it via npm install Dignifiedquire/karma-phantomjs-launcher#69-bin)

[AquilaSagitta]

debug info @dignifiedquire requested. http://pastebin.com/XhSEppjh

[dignifiedquire]

@AquilaSagitta thanks, if you want please try my pr #78 as well, I hope it fixes this issue

[nfantone]

@dignifiedquire Didn't solve the issue. Now the path is, indeed, absolute. But it's still a path to a non existent binary.

INFO [launcher]: Starting browser PhantomJS
ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS
    Can not find the binary /home/nfantone/dev/js/my-project/node_modules/karma-phantomjs-launcher/node_modules/karma-phantomjs-launcher/node_modules/.bin/phantomjs

[nfantone]

Ok, I feel dumb. I've discovered that my auto-generated karma.conf.js had this line:

process.env.PHANTOMJS_BIN = 'node_modules/karma-phantomjs-launcher/node_modules/.bin/phantomjs';

at the very beginning. Entirely missed it this whole time. Removed it and worked flawlessly, both your branch and the 0.2.0 version. Shame on me.

Nevertheless,

1. Your modifications in Dignifiedquire/karma-phantomjs-launcher#69-bin are still reasonable.
2. This very same karma.conf.js file has been like that in my repo since the beginning of time. And it has never been a problem up until the last update to 0.2.0. Also, it's obviously not a coincidence that installing the plugins dependencies manually, creates that .bin/phantomjs. Any ideas on why this could have happened?

We should wait for some input from @AquilaSagitta. But, apart form that, you could close this issue if you want.

Thank you very much, @dignifiedquire for your time and patience.

[dignifiedquire]

Happy to hear that :)

[AquilaSagitta]

I also have the

process.env.PHANTOMJS_BIN = 'node_modules/karma-phantomjs-launcher/node_modules/.bin/phantomjs';

in my karma.conf.js but thats pointing to the right place. I'll try removing it and let you know if that resolves the issue.

[AquilaSagitta]

That seems to resolve the issue >.<

I karma was complaining that the plugin for phantomjs was missing tho. Thought karma shipped with phantomjs and chrome. I added karma-phantomjs-launcher to plugins and it worked fine.

[nfantone]

@AquilaSagitta Was your karma.conf.js created automatically by an app generator, such as yeoman or Slush?

I believe this is affecting users with existing/old setups created by those tools.

[nfantone]

in my karma.conf.js but thats pointing to the right place.

It isn't. Do a clean npm install and check the path. You'll see .bin does not exist. It used to be there, though, as my builds never failed until recently.

[AquilaSagitta]

@nfantone Yes this project was scaffold with Slush (Gulp.js equivalent of Yeoman) probably 2-3 months ago.

You're right the clean install doesn't have a .bin directory with phantomjs however, it was correct before I did a clean install. The process.env.PHANTOMJS_BIN... doesn't seem to actually do anything even when I change the path karma still throws this error

ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS
        Can not find the binary ...\node_modules\karma-phantomjs-launcher\node_modules\.bin\phantomjs
        Please set env variable PHANTOMJS_BIN

NOTE this is with #78 installed

[nfantone]

@nfantone Yes this project was scaffold with Slush (Gulp.js equivalent of Yeoman) probably 2-3 months ago.

Exactly. So was ours. In that same window frame. (I have edited my previous answer where I wrote slug, instead of Slush)

I don't know if newer versions of Slush still include this, but we should open an issue over there.

[AquilaSagitta]

If you want to go ahead and do that feel free. I still don't understand what's happening or why removing that process.env... seems to solve the issue, You seem to have a better understanding of the situation.