gulp serve: Failed to load external module babel-core/register

[loljoho]

Followed the directions in README.md and I receive this error when I run gulp serve:

$ gulp serve
[11:26:22] Failed to load external module babel-core/register
[11:26:22] Requiring external module babel/register

It does, however, serve the boilerplate welcome page successfully.

System/Software Information

$ sw_vers && node -e 'console.log(process.platform, process.versions)'
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.10.3
BuildVersion:   14D136
darwin { http_parser: '2.3',
  node: '0.12.5',
  v8: '3.28.71.19',
  uv: '1.6.1',
  zlib: '1.2.8',
  modules: '14',
  openssl: '1.0.1o' }
$ npm -v
2.12.1
$ yo --version
1.4.7
$ bower -v
1.4.1
$ gulp -v
[11:28:30] CLI version 3.9.0

I attempted a clean install, and retraced every step for a second time in a new directory and I am still encountering the same error.

I must note that I am new to Babel, so I have no idea whether or not this has any consequence; I apologise in advance if this is benign.

[silvenon]

Thanks for a well-composed issue 👍 This error happened because for some reason you don't have babel installed in your project, i.e. in the node_modules directory. We put it in devDependencies in package.json, so the npm install command which ran after scaffolding should've installed it. Could you poke around to see why this is not the case?

[paulballesty]

Had the same issue. Managed to fix it installing babel-core with npm install --save-dev babel-core.

[timdiacon]

I'm getting this error too with latest version of generator - can be fixed as per comment from paulballesty but surely should just be in the package.json so gets installed to begin with no?

[silvenon]

It was fixed in 31348ff, as the reference above your comment says, it just wasn't released yet 😉

Now it's released in v1.0.3.

[rish]

@timdiacon I managed to monkey patch this by adding babel pack into the devDependencies for the package.json that this generator creates, like so:

"babel-core": "^5.5.6",
"babel": "^5.5.6",
....

[silvenon]

The fix is released, though 😉

[rish]

@silvenon Yes I was trying to simulate this via the fix but this doesn't work on a fresh version of a generated app.

[rish]

Ok so I have resolved this by upgrading my node version to iojs-v2.3.4 which would start with a fresh copy of the ~/.npm directory. This may have been an npm caching issue.

But I was able to successfully run the generator with a global install of just yo, gulp, bower.

Thank you for the assistance though @silvenon. 😃

[silvenon]

Glad you got it working 👍 Yeah, probably a caching issue. What was the error you were encountering when trying with the latest release?

[rish]

So trying this out on another machine where I'm using iojs-2.2.1 and ensuring it's not an npm caching issue:-

[22:32:43] Failed to load external module babel/register
/Users/{user}/{project_dir}/gulpfile.babel.js:2
import gulp from 'gulp';
^^^^^^
SyntaxError: Unexpected reserved word
    at exports.runInThisContext (vm.js:53:16)
    at Module._compile (module.js:409:25)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:444:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:351:32)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:306:12)
    at Module.require (module.js:361:17)
    at require (module.js:380:17)
    at Liftoff.handleArguments (/Users/{user}/.nodenv/versions/iojs-2.2.1/lib/node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js:116:3)
    at Liftoff.<anonymous> (/Users/{user}/.nodenv/versions/iojs-2.2.1/lib/node_modules/gulp/node_modules/liftoff/index.js:192:16)
    at module.exports (/Users/{user}/.nodenv/versions/iojs-2.2.1/lib/node_modules/gulp/node_modules/liftoff/node_modules/flagged-respawn/index.js:17:3)

Installing iojs-2.3.4 and it works.

May be worth mentioning this as a requisite on the README?

I can create a pull request if you would prefer to identify this.

I don't have any spare time to test this out on previous iojs-2.3.* versions or other official versions but it would be could so set the minimum version required due to breaking changes from multiple dependencies.

Thank you for the patches though, for this very useful generator, none the less! 🍺

[silvenon]

The problem is that gulp is still searching for babel/register instead of babel-core/register (babel module was renamed to babel-core). You should reset it by reinstalling it – npm install --global gulp did it for me. (This is probably what you did as part of reinstalling iojs).

[dowsanjack]

I'm still having this issue, where gulp is searching for babel/register.
gulp serve is echoing the following output:

[13:14:40] Failed to load external module babel/register
/Users/ankit/dev/coffee/gulpfile.babel.js:2
import gulp from 'gulp';
^^^^^^
SyntaxError: Unexpected reserved word
    at exports.runInThisContext (vm.js:73:16)
    at Module._compile (module.js:443:25)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:478:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:355:32)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:310:12)
    at Module.require (module.js:365:17)
    at require (module.js:384:17)
    at Liftoff.handleArguments (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js:116:3)
    at Liftoff.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/gulp/node_modules/liftoff/index.js:192:16)
    at module.exports (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/gulp/node_modules/liftoff/node_modules/flagged-respawn/index.js:17:3)

Gulp version : 3.9.0

When I do gulp -v:

[13:53:28] Failed to load external module babel/register
[13:53:28] CLI version 3.9.0
[13:53:28] Local version 3.9.0

Can anyone guide where things are going wrong.

[silvenon]

npm install -g gulp doesn't help?

[dowsanjack]

👎 nopes.

[silvenon]

Couple of ideas:

• npm cache clean
• npm uninstall -g gulp, open a new Terminal tab, npm install -g gulp
• reinstall node, as a last resort

Try them out. The last one should work, but it shouldn't really come to that.

[dowsanjack]

Did what you advised, but no change in output. :( . Even reinstalled node.

[silvenon]

Whoa… that should've worked 😕 Are you on OS X? Are you up for pairing with tmate?

[shadowmint]

I'm seeing this on ubuntu too.

[10:4:00] Failed to load external module babel/register
[10:44:00] CLI version 3.9.0
[10:44:00] Local version 3.9.0

To fix I had to install babel, not babel-core.

doug@doug-VirtualBox:~/wok$ gulp --version
[10:55:23] Requiring external module babel-core/register
[10:55:23] CLI version 3.9.0
[10:55:23] Local version 3.9.0
doug@doug-VirtualBox:~/wok$ node --version
v0.10.25

Weirdly this does work on OSX without any problem.

No idea, but it's weird.

Notice how once babel is installed it tries for babel-core/register instead of babel/register. What is up with that? O_o

[silvenon]

Gulp searches for both. First babel-core/register, then babel/register. I'm not sure anymore whether Babel wants us to install babel or babel-core?

[Revod]

I have the same problem, tried that #356 (comment) and nope 👎

I have elementary os (based ubuntu)
node --version:
v4.2.1

gulp --version
[05:27:45] Failed to load external module babel-core/register
[05:27:45] Failed to load external module babel/register
[05:27:45] CLI version 3.9.0
[05:27:45] Local version 3.9.0

[rish]

@Revod I have posted a new issue on the gulp repo here:

gulpjs/gulp#1364 it might be related?

[blackfyre]

Installing the babel-corelocally with npm install --save-dev babel-core solved my problem, but the SyntaxError: Unexpected reserved word problem still remains when trying to run gulp serve.

[Revod]

I solved my problem uninstalling Node and NPM and reinstall using this guide of Team TreeHouse

[blackfyre]

This article held the solution for my problems.

[SpadeRubick]

Tasks completed with the error

run 'gulp dist'
[11:27:20] Failed to load external module babel-register
[11:27:20] Requiring external module babel-core/register
[11:27:25] Using gulpfile F:\Gary\gulpfile.babel.js
[11:27:25] Starting 'js'...
[11:27:25] Finished 'js' after 8.57 ms
[11:27:25] Starting 'css'...
[11:27:25] Finished 'css' after 3.91 ms
[11:27:25] Starting 'html'...
[11:27:25] Finished 'html' after 1.84 ms
[11:27:25] Starting 'dist'...
[11:27:25] Finished 'dist' after 6.53 μs

package.json:

"devDependencies": {
    "babel": "^6.5.2",
    "babel-core": "^6.8.0",
    "babel-preset-es2015": "^6.6.0",
    "gulp": "^3.9.1",
    ……
  }

[richyrb00]

I found that i was using node v6

i moved it back down to v4.4.4

this then fixed the issue but still getting an error with failed to load external module babel-register so i installed that which then took me back to square one which a lot of you posted. i think uninstalled that again and although it hows failed to load external module babel-register.. it works :)

I think is you too node down to 4.2.6 (as i have another system on this version) it should work as required with no issues.

[silvenon]

A new version was released where we don't parse gulpfile with Babel anymore (i.e. we renamed gulpfile.babel.js to gulpfile.js), because Node v4+ support a lot of ES2015 features. So this issue should be gone. Hopefully people will stop torturing this poor thread 😓

[bleedkaga]

hello:
I am is run 'gulp wiredep' , There is an error 'must start with number, buffer, array or string', excuse me how should solve?
Thanks!
------------------ Original ------------------
From: "Matija Marohnić"notifications@github.com;
Date: Tue, May 17, 2016 05:43 AM
To: "yeoman/generator-webapp"generator-webapp@noreply.github.com;
Cc: "bleedkaga"wenfp@palmtrends.com; "Manual"manual@noreply.github.com;
Subject: Re: [yeoman/generator-webapp] gulp serve: Failed to load externalmodule babel-core/register (#356)

A new version was released where we don't parse gulpfile with Babel anymore (i.e. we renamed gulpfile.babel.js to gulpfile.js), because Node v4+ support a lot of ES2015 features. So this issue should be gone.

—
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub

[silvenon]

@bleedkaga please raise a new issue, this is not related to babel-register.

[bleedkaga]

Can you tell me how to solve this problem? @silvenon

[silvenon]

@bleedkaga Maybe. If you open a new issue 😁

[amaalzohny]

in index.js
`
if (env === 'development' || env === 'test') {
// Register the Babel require hook
//require('babel-register');
require('babel-register')({
presets: [ 'es2015' ]
});
}

`

[thecreation]

I am using ubuntu 14.04. And i am using nvm managing the nodejs.

Runing gulp -v getting the error below

[20:54:47] Failed to load external module babel/register
[20:54:47] CLI version 3.9.0
[20:54:47] Local version 3.9.1

And the issue was solved by the steps below:

sudo rm -r /usr/lib/node_modules/
sudo rm /usr/bin/gulp
npm cache clear
npm uninstall gulp-cli -g
npm uninstall gulp -g
npm install gulp-cli -g

Hope it will be helped for whom that using nvm.

[karthikeyana]

i found solution
npm install babel-cli babel-preset-es2015

[quangthien27]

Adding .babelrc file may help

{
  "presets": [
    "es2015"
  ]
}

[NeverMore93]

@baermowei @mqliutie @kevin-kang @xiao-ai 你们TM能用英语嘛？丢人丢到外国去了，shame on you!!!

[NeverMore93]

@mqliutie 觉得好用点赞就行，别TM废话，你以为csdn还是贴吧啊

[mqliutie]

@NeverMore93 满足脏话在这和我说丢人? 我回的是国人,讲中文有问题?和国人还要拽英文?你英语多厉害?嫌丢人你别出来不就好了?

[YDD9]

@Marshevskyy
Thanks, this npm install -g gulp@3.9.0 works !
then I just npm i gulp && gulp build for my app.

[msangel]

Yes, gulp 3.9.0 make this as an warning, not an error, but I still feel like I am doing something wrong.

[lipis]

Can someone just fix this sh*t? Obviously is not working..

[silvenon]

@lipis what isn't working?

[lipis]

@silvenon I think I found the appropriate project to post the issue: gulpjs/gulp-cli#150 sorry for "aggresive" post.. but this issue is circling the web for the last two years..

[silvenon]

Ah, I didn't realize that this threw an actual error, that's bad… I hope someone will fix it.

[markgreve]

For me this was a gulp v3.9.1 issue
deleted node_modules folder
ran
npm uninstsall gulp
npm install gulp@3.9.0

npm unistall --save-dev gulp
deleted node_modules folder
npm install --save-dev gulp@3.9.0

gulp -v
Requiring external module babel-core/register
CLI version 3.9.0
Local version 3.9.0

Everything now works.

[silvenon]

Yeah, that is a Gulp issue and should be dealt with in their issue tracker.

If someone finds an issue with this generator, please open a new issue.

P.S. The reason for locking this issue says "too heated" because that was the most appropriate one on the list. I don't think anyone here was out of line, just that the discussion got a bit chaotic and that the issue has been identified.