Create-react-app: Fresh Install, Yarn Start and then....Nothing

[chezbro]

1.) Fresh install of create-react-app
2.) ran create-react-app project_name
3.) yarn start (compiled successfully, running on localhost:3000)
4.) blank/empty white screen with JS error

• Uncaught SyntaxError: Invalid regular expression: missing / (same error but sometimes points to it being in bundle.js file and sometimes in bootstrap file)

I've tried removing node_modules and npm install. Any other ideas?

Mac 10.11.4 El Capitan
node: v7.8.0
npm: 4.4.4

[Timer]

Did you make any changes to the source files before running start? A freshly generated application works for me. I tested on Node 7.8.0 and 6.10.0.
And can you post a more detailed error? There's not much we can do to help with the little information you provided.

[chezbro]

Thanks @Timer.

I didn't change any source files. What else, other than content below, is helpful to provide?

Error points to this line of bundle.js:

module.exports = __webpack_require__(/! /Users/EMC/Desktop//Code/testing-react/src/index.js */88);

---

package.json file:
{
"name": "testing-react",
"version": "0.1.0",
"private": true,
"dependencies": {
"react": "^15.4.2",
"react-dom": "^15.4.2"
},
"devDependencies": {
"babel-plugin-add-module-exports": "^0.2.1",
"react-scripts": "0.9.5"
},
"scripts": {
"start": "react-scripts start",
"build": "react-scripts build",
"test": "react-scripts test --env=jsdom",
"eject": "react-scripts eject"
}
}

[Timer]

You must have changed something, what is babel-plugin-add-module-exports there for?

[chezbro]

Saw a User mentioned that as a potential solution to what looked like a similar issue. Removed it and still getting same error.

[Timer]

What browser are you using?
Can you please upload a reproducible demo, otherwise there's nothing further we can do.

[chezbro]

Chrome 56.
Recorded a short screencast showing what's happening here: https://youtu.be/10ztaMOLHcc

[Timer]

Looks like a webpack bug, webpack can't handle paths with a directory named * in them (webpack doesn't escaping paths). As a temporary work around, switch directories.

Can you please try [email protected] to see if this is still reproducing?

[chezbro]

Solved! You're the man. Didn't think the path would be a problem as all my Rails apps work without any path related issues.

[Timer]

Did 0.10 solve it or changing directories?

[chezbro]

Directories.

[Timer]

Closing this since I reported it upstream: https://github.com/webpack/webpack/issues/4611. And this is a super rare issue. 😅

[aikar]

@echezbro why did you name your folder that?

[Timer]

To each his own I guess.
Seems dangerous, when I went to delete it I almost did rm *, luckily caught myself. 😅 Used macOS finder instead haha.

[chezbro]

I enjoy a clean desktop, so I have my many folders inside an all encompassing "*" folder. Hadn't been an issue until this..

[Timer]

Odd, I would imagine most watchers would break with *, esp. anything webpack related.

[aikar]

@echezbro my question was why did you choose '*' instead of say 'projects'

[Timer]

@aikar * is shorter and has meaning.

Anyway, I don't think we should try to badger @echezbro about something this trivial. 😅

I'm glad it's working now and hopefully we can improve our (or all) JS tooling to support any use case, no matter how seldom used.

@echezbro Please let us know if you run into any other issues. We are always here to answer questions, too! 😄