Chokidar exits when the watched folder is removed

[CxRes]

Given our discussion in #319 , if Chokidar is happy about placing a watch on a non-existent directory at startup, symmetry should demand that it should continue watching even if the directory is removed after issuing an unlink event (of course, assuming persistent: true). Right now, the watcher stops when the path is deleted at least on Windows.

I think the circumstances are identical in that a directory does not exist in both cases, why should they be treated differently?

[es128]

If it's behaving this way it is a bug, not by design.

[quetzalcoatl]

Unfortunately, yes it does. I'm on Windows too, and I battled with some meteor/sanjo:jasmine/karma issues, and I just traced one thing down to chokidar.

Karma uses chokidar to watch its files. When Meteor's builder renames/removes a directory with those files, and then creates/renames a new directory on the same place, Karma/Chokidar stops watching this directory for file changes. I just noticed that it's the Chokidar that simply stops issuing events in this case.

[leoselig]

We are having this issue as well
Right now, we don't even have a satisfying workaround for it.

[kafoso]

This problem persists in release 1.5.2 on Windows 7 Service Pack 1.

unlinkDir event never fires. Not even when listening for all events (.on('all', ...)). Chokidar barfs this error out:

events.js:141                                            
      throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event               
      ^                                                  

Error: watch null EPERM                                  
    at exports._errnoException (util.js:874:11)          
    at FSEvent.FSWatcher._handle.onchange (fs.js:1217:21)

EDIT 2016-06-09 16:53 (CEST)

Updated npm (npm install -g npm) to newest version (2.14.7). The problem is the same.

[lkraav]

I'm also wondering whether .on( 'all' ) should or not catch error events?

[es128]

@lkraav from the readme:

Additionally all is available which gets emitted with the underlying event name and path for every event other than ready, raw, and error.

[lkraav]

@es128 tyvm, I also happened to find this info at that time, but forgot to update the comment.

[lmoyrd]

when i ran script in debug mode in webstrom, it could catch error event.
but in git bash or cmd.exe (npm run dev) ,it just existed and threw the error Error watching file for changes: EPERM
Any ideas?

[quetzalcoatl]

let me try out if meterjs/karma/velocity still break on windows due to exactly this issue..
..or anything that tries observing and fiddling with delete/create at the same path :]

..but then, I don't even have them on this new machine, so that may take a while..
well, maybe 'unpopular' it really is..