webpack --watch is not working on windows if root folder contains '(' or ')' in its name

[homelchenko]

Hi,

I'm doing one of the tutorials that involves using webpack in watch mode, I noticed that whenever my 'root' (or rather current folder) contains '(' or ')' symbols in its paths, watching is not happening.

Am I missing anything? Can I tweak it in some way to get correct watching behaviour?

[homelchenko]

Sorry, forgot to mention. webpack version is 1.12.14

[vlad75r]

It's not just the root folder - it gets broken if there's a folder with '(' or ')' anywhere within the path to the root...

[shshaw]

Experiencing the same thing on OS X. Would love a solution for this, as most of my projects live in a Dropbox business account which has parentheses in the folder name that cannot be changed.

[RickyRomero]

I have the same problem, Dropbox for Business appends the parentheses to the folder name like so:

~/Dropbox (Personal)/
~/Dropbox (Company Account Name)/

I need to work outside of Dropbox because of this bug.

This bug also affects webpack-dev-server --inline, which is how I encountered it.

[Lutreer]

I got the same thing on gulp and fis

[shshaw]

Tried to isolate the issue, and ran a simple test using only watchpack 1.1.0 on a folder with parenthesis. File change detection worked without a hitch.

[SpaceK33z]

This is most probably an issue in chokidar, see paulmillr/chokidar#533. There is a PR open to fix it.

[Eccenux]

Seem like it's not only the braces problem. Exclamation character in path will also give you all kinds of problems on Windows (at least on Windows 10).

Example path causing problems: c:\test\webpack\!_abc\.

Problems:

1. webpack entry.js bundle.js will give you: ERROR in Entry module not found: Error: Cannot resolve directory 'c:\test\webpack' in c:\test\webpack\!_abc. You can workaround this issue by creating a simple webpack.config.js.
2. Watch will not work (even with webpack.config.js). webpack --watch will not refresh bundle.js after entry.js chnages.

No workaround for point 2 other then just not using special characters in your path.

[bebraw]

Moved to webpack/webpack-cli#20.