Express and AngularJS - web page freezes when attempting to open home page

Question

I will explain the issue in as much detail as possible.

I am attempting to use AngularJS with Express and am running into trouble. I wish to display HTML files (not using a templating engine). These HTML files will have AngularJS directives.
However, I am not able to display a simple HTML file itself!

The directory structure is as follows:

Root  
---->public  
-------->js  
------------>app.js  
------------>controllers.js  
---->views  
-------->index.html  
-------->partials  
------------>test.html  
---->app.js  

The contents of public/js/app.js is:

angular.module('myApp', []).
  config(['$routeProvider', function($routeProvider) {
  $routeProvider.when('/', {templateUrl: 'partials/test.html', controller: IndexCtrl});
$routeProvider.otherwise({redirectTo: '/'});
}]);  

The contents of public/js/controllers/js is:

function IndexCtrl() {  
}  

The contents of the body tag in views/index.html is:

<div ng-view></div>  

That's it. The expectation is that AngularJS will substitute the above view with test.html - views/partials/test.html whose contents are:

This is the test page!  

enclosed within the paragraph tags. That's it!

Finally, the contents of ROOT/app.js file is:

var express = require('express');

var app = module.exports = express();  

// Configuration

app.configure(function(){  
    app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');  
    app.engine('html', require('ejs').renderFile);  
    app.use(express.bodyParser());  
    app.use(express.methodOverride());  
    app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));  
    app.use(app.router);  
});

app.configure('development', function(){  
  app.use(express.errorHandler({ dumpExceptions: true, showStack: true }));  
});  

app.configure('production', function(){  
  app.use(express.errorHandler());  
});  

// routes

app.get('/', function(request, response) {  
    response.render('index.html');  
});  

// Start server

app.listen(3000, function(){  
  console.log("Express server listening on port %d in %s mode", this.address().port, app.settings.env);  
});  

Now, when I do $node app.js in the root folder, the server starts without any error. However if I go to localhost:3000 in the browser, the URL changes to localhost:3000/#/ and the page gets stuck / freezes. I can't even check the console log in Chrome!
This is the problem that I am facing. Any clue about what I am doing wrong?

Answer 1

Finally figured it out - after many intense moments of hair pulling!!
The reason why the page freezes is because (explained step by step):

1. User launches localhost:3000
2. This requests the express server for '/'
3. Express renders index.html
4. AngularJS will render the template 'partials/test.html'.
5. Here, I am taking a wild guess - AngularJS has made a HTTP request for the page 'partials/test.html'.

6. However, you can see that express or rather app.js does not have a handler for this GET request. That is, the following code is missing:

   app.get('partials/:name', function(request, response) {
   var name = request.params.name;
   response.render('partials/' + name);
   });

inside app.js of the ROOT directory. Once I add this code, the page renders as expected.