loopback-component-explorer production disabling cause error

[echmykhun]

Hello!
I just wanted to test production config of my application. I set NODE_ENV to "production" and called node server/server.js and it returned me this:

/vagrant/node_modules/loopback-boot/lib/config-loader.js:239
throw new Error('Cannot apply ' + fileName + ': ' + err);
^
Error: Cannot apply /vagrant/server/component-config.production.json: Cannot merge values of incompatible types for the option loopback-component-explorer.
at mergeComponentConfig (/vagrant/node_modules/loopback-boot/lib/config-loader.js:239:11)
at mergeConfigurations (/vagrant/node_modules/loopback-boot/lib/config-loader.js:138:5)
at loadNamed (/vagrant/node_modules/loopback-boot/lib/config-loader.js:76:16)
at Object.ConfigLoader.loadComponents (/vagrant/node_modules/loopback-boot/lib/config-loader.js:56:10)
at compile (/vagrant/node_modules/loopback-boot/lib/compiler.js:60:20)
at bootLoopBackApp (/vagrant/node_modules/loopback-boot/index.js:139:22)
at Object. (/vagrant/server/server.js:21:1)
at Module._compile (module.js:435:26)
at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:442:10)
at Module.load (module.js:356:32)

here is my component-config.production.json

{
  "loopback-component-explorer": false
}

and middleware.production.json

{
  "final:after": {
    "loopback#errorHandler": {
      "params": {
        "includeStack": false
      }
    }
  }
}

Here is my slc -v

slc -v
strongloop v5.0.1 (node v4.2.1)
├── strong-arc@1.8.3 (d95b140)
├── strong-build@2.0.6 (d008a3e)
├── strong-deploy@3.1.2 (be6180a)
├── strong-mesh-models@8.1.0 (62e539b)
├── strong-pm@5.0.1 (b96f806)
├── strong-registry@1.1.5 (f46e58f)
├── strong-start@1.3.2 (1327018)
├─┬ strong-supervisor@3.3.0 (46b06b4)
│ └── strong-agent@2.0.2 (4ea7ee9)
├── generator-loopback@1.12.1 (a374136)
├── node-inspector@0.7.4
└── nodefly-register@0.3.3

And i failed to understand why it crushes and why it shows stacktrace on it's crush

Could you help, please?

UPD: same problem with node v4.0.0

[Neil-UWA]

I suppose in your component-config.json, looks like :

{
  "loopback-component-explorer": {
    "mountPath": 'xxxx'
  }
}

The problem here is that when you set NODE_ENV to production, the merge utility of loopback will try to merge a boolean (in this case , false in your component-config.production.json) with Object and it fails to merge them.

The simplest way to disable explorer is to remove explorer.js and the component-config.{}.json file entirely in your production server. That is what I do.

[pavlin99th]

Another workaround:

• component-config.production.json as suggested:

{
  "loopback-component-explorer": false
}

• rename component-config.json to component-config.development.json:

{
  "loopback-component-explorer": {
    "mountPath": "/explorer"
  }
}

• create component-config.json with just:

{
}

[richardpringle]

Hey @echmykhun can you provide a sample repo for me to reproduce the issue, please? https://github.com/strongloop/loopback/wiki/Reporting-issues#bug-report

[cloudlena]

I'm having the same problem. While @pavlin99th's solution provides a temporary fix (thanks for that!), I think the right solution would be to completely replace the config object if the value in the production file is a boolean with the value false as in:

{
  "loopback-component-explorer": false
}

[gausie]

@mastertinner's idea is a good one!

[Neil-UWA]

@mastertinner agreed +1