Failed to lookup view in directory with Express Handlebars

Question

I'm following the base app layout you get from Express Generator and attempting to configure it for Handlebars.

Snippet:

var exphbs = require('express-handlebars');

var app = express();

// view engine setup
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views/'));

app.engine('handlebars', exphbs({defaultLayout: 'main'}));
app.set('view engine', 'handlebars');

All is well until I try and change the extension for Handlebars to .hbs as follows:

app.engine('handlebars', exphbs({defaultLayout: 'main', extname: '.hbs'}));

(and rename the files of course).

That results in:

Error: Failed to lookup view "error" in views directory

I've looked in function ExpressHandlebars(config) in express-handlebars.js source and it does attempt to set extname apppropriately.

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Somewhat counter-intuitively, setting the extension name is not enough.

The required setup is:

app.engine('hbs', exphbs({defaultLayout: 'main', extname: '.hbs'}));
app.set('view engine', 'hbs');

Answer 2

Creating error.hbs file in views directory solved my issue.

 var exphbs = require('express-handlebars');

    // view engine setup
app.engine('hbs', exphbs({ defaultLayout: 'main', extname: '.hbs' }));
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'));
app.set('view engine', 'hbs');