Webpack-dev-server: Nothing seems to disable file watching / hot reloading
Operating System: Windows 10
Node Version: 10.15.0
NPM Version: 6.4.1
webpack Version: 4.29.6
webpack-dev-server Version: 3.2.1
- [x] This is a bug
- [ ] This is a modification request
How do you disable file watching / hot reloading? I've been banging my head against the wall for a while now, reading various SO threads and GitHub issues, and yet nothing seems to work.
I've tried the following:
- Setting
hot: false - Setting
inline: false - Removing
HotModuleReplacementPluginfrom my list of plugins - Unsetting
publicPath(which actually breaks the UI entirely) - Setting
watch: false
And yet, every time I save a change to a source file, the dev server rebuilds, messages are sent to the browser console, and (optionally) the page is refreshed.
I really don't understand the last one (watch: false) since it seems like exactly the option I'm looking for, yet it doesn't seem to have any effect. Has anyone actually been able to disable file watching?
kaiyoma
All 19 comments
It is impossible, don't use webpack-dev-server if you don't want reloading
alexander-akait
on 27 Mar 2019
Why do you want disable hot/watch ?
alexander-akait
on 27 Mar 2019
Then why do you have all the watch options?
https://webpack.js.org/configuration/watch/
Why do you also allow hot reloading to be turned off in the config? This doesn't seem like a satisfactory answer.
kaiyoma
on 27 Mar 2019
We run the dev server as part of our CI. We run Selenium tests against the dev server as part of each commit that's going through review and we also run Selenium tests daily.
We like the dev server because in dev mode, there is extra output to the browser console, like React PropTypes errors and other things of that nature. However, in a CI environment, there clearly won't be any changes to the source files, so we'd like to disable file watching. We've found that the webpack dev server sometimes has a mind of its own and rebuilds when it doesn't need to, like if a file is simply read or touched. Rebuilding causes the UI to refresh, which causes tests to fail.
kaiyoma
on 27 Mar 2019
Read documentation - it is for webpack --watch, webpack --watch !== webpack-dev-server
alexander-akait
on 27 Mar 2019
I think using webpack-dev-server on CI is out of scope this package. Better use own server, as minimum it is faster and flexibility as maximum webpack-dev-server get overhead for testing.
alexander-akait
on 27 Mar 2019
Okay, that's what I was afraid of. Thanks, I'll look into that.
kaiyoma
on 27 Mar 2019
We've found that the webpack dev server sometimes has a mind of its own and rebuilds when it doesn't need to, like if a file is simply read or touched.
Something wrong in you CI setup, webpack doesn't do rebuild if it is unnecessary
alexander-akait
on 27 Mar 2019
If you provide link/minimum reproducible test repo i can look what is wrong.
alexander-akait
on 27 Mar 2019
We've found that the webpack dev server sometimes has a mind of its own and rebuilds when it doesn't need to, like if a file is simply read or touched.
Something wrong in you CI setup, webpack doesn't do rebuild if it is unnecessary
I've found that running Jest (locally) while running the webpack dev server causes the server to rebuild over and over, even though none of the source files are changing.
kaiyoma
on 27 Mar 2019
@kaiyoma can you create minimum reproducible test repo?
alexander-akait
on 27 Mar 2019
I can try. I'll let you know if I can.
kaiyoma
on 27 Mar 2019
@evilebottnawi Is there a way to disable the auto-refresh behavior? I would like webpack-dev-server to rebuild on every file change, but I _don't_ want the page in the browser to refresh until I do it myself. I've tried searching all over but I can't figure out how to do this.
kaiyoma
on 18 Apr 2019
@kaiyoma What do you mean? I can't understand what you want? Just use webpack watch
alexander-akait
on 19 Apr 2019
I would like a way to have a server that serves the files, and I would like the bundle to be rebuilt automatically when a source file is modified, but I _don't_ want the browser to automatically reload the page. I don't think webpack watch alone is enough because I still need a server.
It seems that other people want this too: https://github.com/webpack/webpack-dev-server/pull/1276
It would be nice if there was a way to disable both HMR and automatic page refreshing. Our UI is very expensive to load, so that's why I _don't_ want the page to automatically refresh on every change.
kaiyoma
on 19 Apr 2019
hm, sound reasonable, let's reopen and mark as feature because it is rare use case will be better if you take care about this and send a PR
alexander-akait
on 19 Apr 2019
Great, thanks! It sounds like there's already a PR in the works, so I'll wait for that.
kaiyoma
on 19 Apr 2019
Looks PR was abandoned, so feel free to send new PR
alexander-akait
on 19 Apr 2019
hiroppy
on 16 May 2019
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Most helpful comment
We run the dev server as part of our CI. We run Selenium tests against the dev server as part of each commit that's going through review and we also run Selenium tests daily.
We like the dev server because in dev mode, there is extra output to the browser console, like React PropTypes errors and other things of that nature. However, in a CI environment, there clearly won't be any changes to the source files, so we'd like to disable file watching. We've found that the webpack dev server sometimes has a mind of its own and rebuilds when it doesn't need to, like if a file is simply read or touched. Rebuilding causes the UI to refresh, which causes tests to fail.