I need help to get the developer environment working.

[nixxquality]

I wanted to try poking around at the Livebook code but the instructions in the README don't work for me.

First of all, when I ran mix setup I ran into an error with npm. The command npm install --prefix assets failed with a confusing message:

npm ERR! code ENOENT
npm ERR! path c:\Users\Linus\Code\livebook/package.json
npm ERR! errno -4058
npm ERR! enoent ENOENT: no such file or directory, open 'c:\Users\Linus\Code\livebook\package.json'
npm ERR! enoent This is related to npm not being able to find a file.
npm ERR! enoent

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\Linus\AppData\Local\npm-cache\_logs\2024-04-04T13_44_19_995Z-debug.log
** (exit) -4058
    (mix 1.16.1) lib/mix/tasks/cmd.ex:74: Mix.Tasks.Cmd.run/1
    (mix 1.16.1) lib/mix/task.ex:478: anonymous fn/3 in Mix.Task.run_task/5
    (mix 1.16.1) lib/mix/task.ex:544: Mix.Task.run_alias/6
    (mix 1.16.1) lib/mix/cli.ex:96: Mix.CLI.run_task/2
    c:/Program Files/Elixir/bin/mix:2: (file)

% from the log
1 info using npm@7.8.0
2 info using node@v20.12.1

I manually ran npm install inside the folder and it seemed to work fine.

---

However, when I try to run mix phx.server I had no luck. I'm not sure what errors are related and what aren't.

> mix phx.server
     warning: Mix.install_project_dir/0 is undefined or private. Did you mean:

           * install/1
           * install/2
           * installed?/0

     │
 844 │       Mix.install_project_dir()
     │           ~
     │
     └─ lib/livebook/runtime/erl_dist/runtime_server.ex:844:11: Livebook.Runtime.ErlDist.RuntimeServer.install_project_dir/0

[notice]     :alarm_handler: {:set, {{:disk_almost_full, ~c"C:\\"}, []}}
[notice]     :alarm_handler: {:set, {{:disk_almost_full, ~c"D:\\"}, []}}
[notice]     :alarm_handler: {:set, {{:disk_almost_full, ~c"E:\\"}, []}}
[notice]     :alarm_handler: {:set, {{:disk_almost_full, ~c"F:\\"}, []}}
[notice]     :alarm_handler: {:set, {{:disk_almost_full, ~c"G:\\"}, []}}
[notice] Protocol 'inet_tcp': register/listen error: econnrefused


ERROR!!! [Livebook] Could not start distributed node: {{:shutdown, {:failed_to_start_child, :net_kernel, {:EXIT, :nodistribution}}}, {:child, :undefined, :net_sup_dynamic, {:erl_distribution, :start_link, [%{name: :livebook_lclclbii, supervisor: :net_sup_dynamic, net_tickintensity: 4, net_ticktime: 60, name_domain: :shortnames, clean_halt: false}]}, :permanent, false, 1000, :supervisor, [:erl_distribution]}}

Please let me know if you need more info to help me out.

[josevalim]

I believe the --prefix assets does not work on Windows. :( You can do cd assets; npm install; cd ...

What is your Erlang/Elixir version? You can run iex and post the first three lines here!

[nixxquality]

Erlang/OTP 26 [erts-14.0] [source] [64-bit] [smp:16:16] [ds:16:16:10] [async-threads:1] [jit:ns]

Interactive Elixir (1.16.1) - press Ctrl+C to exit (type h() ENTER for help)
iex(1)>

[jonatanklosko]

Try iex --sname test and see if a firewall config pops up. Alternatively you could try reinstalling Elixir, #708 looks similar.

[nixxquality]

Sorry about the delay. I reinstalled Elixir as suggested and the issue is now fixed.

I hit one more speedbump trying to get it to work: The watcher was not spawning properly for me, probably because on Windows, "npm" points to npm.cmd, which cannot be run with erlang.open_port({:spawn_executable, ....
I'm not experienced with Phoenix, but I did find some documentation and was able to run the server by doing a simple change.

diff --git a/config/dev.exs b/config/dev.exs
index 5b1b690f..aa485149 100644
--- a/config/dev.exs
+++ b/config/dev.exs
@@ -18,7 +18,8 @@ config :livebook, LivebookWeb.Endpoint,
   debug_errors: true,
   check_origin: false,
   watchers: [
-    npm: ["run", "watch", cd: Path.expand("../assets", __DIR__)]
+    node: ["build.js", "--watch", cd: Path.expand("../assets", __DIR__)]
   ]

Thank you for your help.

[josevalim]

Would you like to send a PR for this change? Then we can guarantee it works on Windows for everyone!

[nixxquality]

Done, see #2553.