PM2 does not "watch" (respond to file changes) on Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS

[tkambler]

Example app - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/832215/app.zip

When I start this application on OS X (Yosemite), it works just fine:

$ pm2 start ./pm2/development.json

As changes are made to files within ./lib/**/*, the application automatically restarts. However, when I start the application on Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS - it starts just fine, but does not respond to file changes. Quite frustrating.

[tkambler]

This is really strange... when I set the DEBUG env variable to * and then launch, PM2 behaves as desired:

$ export DEBUG=* && pm2 start ./pm2/development.json

[tkambler]

Or so it seemed. I'm honestly not sure at this point. For me, watch functionality is extremely finicky and unreliable right now.

[tkambler]

So again, I was able to start the app and have watch do absolutely nothing. I then ran $ pm2 kill, export DEBUG=*, and pm2 start ./pm2/development.json, and it started working again. I then ran $ pm2 kill && export DEBUG= && pm2 start ./pm2/development.json - and now watch no longer works.

[soyuka]

Please edit your post next time instead of mass-posting like this, thanks.

First, there are issues regarding Ubuntu 14.04: #1424 #1380.

So, please try the development version npm i -g Unitech/PM2#development.

Or so it seemed. I'm honestly not sure at this point. For me, watch functionality is extremely finicky and unreliable right now.

Saying this is an easy task, but I can assure you that the only issues there are with the watch functionnality are cases that are not covered by chokidar (see nfs for example). The only thing done here is to enable chokidar when a flag is set, nothing more!

Can you mention: pm2 version, node version, some head -n 50 ~/.pm2.log. You may also want to take a look at contributing guidelines and this issue about watch that expose some solutions to problems.

[Unitech]

Hello @tkambler,

Do the new version of PM2 solved your issue?

The update procedure is quite simple:

$ npm install pm2 -g
$ pm2 update

Thanks,

[tkambler]

It did. What was the problem?

[soyuka]

Probably the ubuntu segfault caused by the garbage collector.

Commit about the fix here. See also #1380 and this issue on joyent/node.

[Unitech]

Happy to hear that!

[nojvek]

I am experiencing the watching issue on 16.04

It seems node 8.4 doesn't bode well with 16.04

Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS
Release:	16.04
Codename:	xenial

node -v
v8.4.0

pm2 -v
2.6.1