Flow-for-vscode: The flow server doesn't start

[ihortkachuk]

When I open VSCode the flow server doesn't start. А few days ago everything worked. How to fix this problem?

Settings:

{
    "javascript.validate.enable": false,
    "flow.enabled": true,
    "flow.useNPMPackagedFlow": true
}

VSCode: v1.21.1
flow-bin: v0.68.0

[JakubRimal]

Same here. It has started yesterday and I have no idea why (there wasn't any update, right?).

[JakubRimal]

Ok, now I've realized that the whole extension is not running at all (you can check it by Ctrl + Shift + P > Show Running Extensions) even it is enabled. Do you have any ideas what's wrong?

[JakubRimal]

Update: In my case it was a global problem of VS Code, some extensions simply didn't run. Sorry for the confusion on this issue.

BTW: I've solved it by complete reinstallation of VS Code (sudo apt-get purge code, rm -rf ~/.config/Code, rm -rf ~/.vscode, then install VS Code and extensions again).

[TomLingham]

Same problem but simply uninstalling and reinstalling the extension in vscode worked for me. Issue was simply not seeming to work at all. Opening the console in developer tools had a lot of errors related to the flow extensions.

[alexsasharegan]

I've tried reinstalling the extension, but the flow extension still isn't starting. I really don't want to nuke all of vscode if I don't have to...

UPDATE

I was out of commission for a day, but today I tried uninstalling and reinstalling and it's working again. Perhaps my install yesterday was bad and was cached? It seemed to install far too quickly last time. This time installation had a reasonable pause for download and write to disk.

[marknelissen]

It seems that the extension is looking in the wrong place for the "local" flow-bin package. It is looking in the node_modules of the extension instead of the node_modules of the project.

[2018-05-30T21:10:03.414Z] [INFO] flow - [unknown]: Flow server in c:\Users\Mark\sandbox\demo-mobile-app
[2018-05-30T21:10:03.590Z] [INFO] flow - Path to Flow: C:\Users\Mark\.vscode\extensions\flowtype.flow-for-vscode-0.8.1\node_modules\.bin\flow.cmd
[2018-05-30T21:10:03.818Z] [INFO] flow - Path to Flow: C:\Users\Mark\.vscode\extensions\flowtype.flow-for-vscode-0.8.1\node_modules\.bin\flow.cmd
[2018-05-30T21:10:03.853Z] [INFO] flow - [not installed]: Flow server in c:\Users\Mark\sandbox\demo-mobile-app
[2018-05-30T21:10:03.890Z] [WARN] flow - 

[GiancarlosIO]

same here!!!

[matei-radu]

I had this issue on a couple of occasions and it was always caused by not having installed the same version of flow-bin as declared in the .flowconfig of the projects.

[noahtallen]

@matt-block yarn global add flow-bin@version fixed it for me too! Is there a way to get it to point to a local installation instead of the global one? That way I don't have to manually keep track of this everywhere.

[matei-radu]

@ntomallen Yes, in your VS Code settings you need to point flow.pathToFlow to your workspace node_module:

// settings.json
{
  "flow.pathToFlow": "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/.bin/flow",
}

${workspaceRoot} is a special variable provided by VS Code and it always points to the current project folder. You can find it in the variables reference page of the official docs.

I personally prefer to use the local Flow module because this way I can ensure that the installed version and the configured one in .flowconfig always match even when I switch projects.

[JakubRimal]

@matt-block @ntomallen: There is an extra setting for that: flow.useNPMPackagedFlow, just set it to true and you are done (no need to change flow.pathToFlow).

[matei-radu]

@JakubRimal Thanks! Do you also know what is the behaviour if I have both set up?

• If I have both of them, does the plugin prioritize and use the Npm one?
• If there is no local Flow, will the plugin fallback to using the global one defined with flow.pathToFlow?

[JakubRimal]

@matt-block Not sure, the documentation doesn't say anything about it. But I would guess that useNPMPackagedFlow overrides pathToFlow.

[matei-radu]

@JakubRimal Thanks, I asked because I didn't found anything in the docs as well.

[orta]

Its in the configuration section: https://github.com/flowtype/flow-for-vscode#configuration

Happy to take PRs improving docs 👍

[patrikniebur]

If someone is experiencing same problem workspaceRoot has been deprecated in favor of workspaceFolder. So correct path in your settings.json should be:
"flow.pathToFlow": "${workspaceFolder}/node_modules/.bin/flow"

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/variables-reference#_why-isnt-workspaceroot-documented

[Mayank1791989]

@patrikniebur The variables link which you shared only works in vscode debugging and task configuration file not in vscode plugins.

In plugin version 1.1.0 we added support for vscode multi-root workspaces so we also replaces workspaceRoot with workspaceFolder. Check out the updated configuration docs https://github.com/flowtype/flow-for-vscode#configuration for info.

[patrikniebur]

Ah sorry for confusion, it's just a reference to deprecation of workspaceRoot by vscode

[matei-radu]

@Mayank1791989 I think it's safe to close this, right? :wink:

[nhatanhvl]

You just need to correct the [version] in .flowconfig as flow-bin in package.json so you can restart the server

[saumar16]

no work
version
react-native-cli: 2.0.1
react-native: 0.62.2
flow 0.125.1