Question

Deployment fails for Rails App with App Platform - No such file or directory - /workspace/node_modules/.bin/webpack (Errno::ENOENT)

Hi, as I was deploying rails app on App Platform, I was getting error as followed. Since yarn is already included when I have webpacker gem in the project Gemfile, however, I suspect yarn install was not executed before the out-of-box rake assets:precompile command. So, I’m getting the file not found due to no node_modules being installed.

Cleaning up the bundler cache.
truscan-demo    | 21:33:34 -----> Installing node-v12.16.2-linux-x64
truscan-demo    | 21:33:39 -----> Installing yarn-v1.22.4
truscan-demo    | 21:33:40 -----> Detecting rake tasks
truscan-demo    | 21:34:00 -----> Preparing app for Rails asset pipeline
truscan-demo    | 21:34:00        Running: rake assets:precompile
truscan-demo    | 21:34:23        cd "/workspace" && RAILS_ENV=production bin/webpack
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26        /layers/heroku_ruby/gems/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.6.0/gems/webpacker-3.6.0/lib/webpacker/webpack_runner.rb:11:in `exec': No such file or directory - /workspace/node_modules/.bin/webpack (Errno::ENOENT)
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26              from /layers/heroku_ruby/gems/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.6.0/gems/webpacker-3.6.0/lib/webpacker/webpack_runner.rb:11:in `block in run'
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26              from /layers/heroku_ruby/gems/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.6.0/gems/webpacker-3.6.0/lib/webpacker/webpack_runner.rb:10:in `chdir'
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26              from /layers/heroku_ruby/gems/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.6.0/gems/webpacker-3.6.0/lib/webpacker/webpack_runner.rb:10:in `run'
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26              from /layers/heroku_ruby/gems/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.6.0/gems/webpacker-3.6.0/lib/webpacker/runner.rb:6:in `run'
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26              from bin/webpack:15:in `<main>'
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26        rake aborted!
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26        Command failed with status (1): [cd "/workspace" && RAILS_ENV=production bi...]
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26        /layers/heroku_ruby/gems/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.6.0/gems/react_on_rails-11.1.8/lib/tasks/assets.rake:64:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26        Tasks: TOP => assets:precompile => react_on_rails:assets:compile_environment => react_on_rails:assets:webpack
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26        (See full trace by running task with --trace)
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26 
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26  !
truscan-demo    | 21:34:26  !     Precompiling assets failed.

Note that I have yarn install as build command already. Perhaps it is to run after rake assets:precompeile, but I need it before this rake task. Please help.

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fung933 • February 6, 2021

thanks @kamaln7 for the advice. However, this hook was performed after the assets_precompile task still.

I believe react_on_rails overrides the assets_precompile task with its build command. I resolved this by modifying react_on_rails build command, in react_on_rails.rb:

ReactOnRails.configure do |config|
  # This configures the script to run to build the production assets by webpack. Set this to nil
  # if you don't want react_on_rails building this file for you.
  config.build_production_command = "RAILS_ENV=production yarn install && bin/webpack"

I have added yarn install right before the bin/webpack build command. works for me :)

Kamal Nasser • February 1, 2021

Hi @fung933,

That’s correct, the custom build commands are run at the end of the build, after all the built-in buildpacks have finished processing.

It looks like this issue is specific to the react_on_rails gem which expects yarn install to be run before rake assets:precompile. We’re working on making this work out of the box, but until then, you might be able to use a pre-assets:precompile task to run yarn install (source):

# lib/tasks/before_assets_precompile.rake

task :before_assets_precompile do
  system('yarn install')
end

# every time you execute 'rake assets:precompile'
# run 'before_assets_precompile' first    
Rake::Task['assets:precompile'].enhance ['before_assets_precompile']

I’m not familiar enough with rake myself so I don’t know if this will work with the current versions of rake.