Grunt-contrib-watch doesn't see new files

Question

I made Gruntfile.js like this:

'use strict';

module.exports = function (grunt) {
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-favicons');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-imagemin');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-bake');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-htmlmin');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-less');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-autoprefixer');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-concat');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-uglify');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-cwebp');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-responsive-images');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-retinafy');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-spritesmith');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-notify');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-watch');

require('load-grunt-tasks')(grunt);

grunt.initConfig({
    pkg : grunt.file.readJSON('package.json'),
    watch: {
        html: {
            files: ['./assets/**/*.html'],
            tasks: ['html'],
            options: {
                spawn: false,
                livereload: true,
            },
        },
        less: {
            files: ['./assets/less/**/*.less'],
            tasks: ['less_files'],
            options: {
                spawn: false,
                livereload: true,
            },
        },
        js: {
            files: ['./assets/js/**/*.js'],
            tasks: ['js'],
            options: {
                spawn: false,
                livereload: true,
            },
        },
        img: {
            files: ['./assets/images/**/*.png'],
            tasks: ['img'],
            options: {
                spawn: false,
                livereload: true,
            },
        },
        favicon: {
            files: ['./assets/favicon/favicon.png'],
            tasks: ['favicon'],
            options: {
                spawn: false,
                livereload: true,
            },
        },
        icons: {
            files: ['./assets/sprites/**/*.png'],
            tasks: ['icons'],
            options: {
                spawn: false,
                livereload: true,
            },
        },
    },
    shell: {
        can_i_use_update: {
            command: 'npm update caniuse-db'
        }
    },
    favicons: {
        options: {},
        icons: {
            src: 'assets/favicon/favicon.png',
            dest: 'dist/favicons/'
        }
    },
    imagemin: {
        images: {
            options: {
                optimizationLevel: 4,
                progressive: true,
                interlaced: true
            },
            files: [{
                expand: true,
                cwd: './dist/images',
                src: ['**/*.{png,jpg,jpeg,gif}'],
                dest: './dist/images/'
            }]
        },
        favicons: {
            options: {
                optimizationLevel: 4,
                progressive: true,
                interlaced: true
            },
            files: [{
                expand: true,
                cwd: './dist/favicons',
                src: ['**/*.{png,jpg,jpeg,gif}'],
                dest: './dist/favicons/'
            }]
        },
        sprite: {
            options: {
                optimizationLevel: 4,
                progressive: true,
                interlaced: true
            },
            files: {
                './dist/images/sprite.png': './dist/images/sprite.png',
            }
        },
    },
    bake: {
        build: {
            options: {},
            files: [{
                expand: true,
                cwd: './assets/',
                src: ['*.html'],
                dest: './dist/',
                ext: '.html'
            }]
        }
    },
    htmlmin: {
        dist: {
            options: {
                removeComments: true,
                collapseWhitespace: true,
                conservativeCollapse: true,
                preserveLineBreaks: true
            },
            files: [{
                expand: true,
                cwd: './dist/',
                src: ['**/*.html'],
                dest: './dist/'
            }]
        }
    },
    less: {
        build: {
            options: {
                compress: true,
                ieCompat: true,
                sourceMap: true,
                sourceMapFilename: './dist/css/style.map',
                sourceMapURL: 'css/style.map'
            },
            files: {
                "./dist/css/style.css": "./assets/less/style.less"
            }
        }
    },
    autoprefixer: {
        options: {
            browsers: ['last 5 versions', 'ie 8', 'ie 9', '> 5%']
        },
        build: {
            "./dist/css/style.css":"./dist/css/style.css"
        },
    },
    concat: {
        options: {},
        dist: {
            src: ['./assets/js/*.js'],
            dest: './dist/js/script.js',
        },
    },
    uglify: {
        build: {
            options: { compress: true },
            files: { "./dist/js/script.js":"./dist/js/script.js" }
        }
    },
    cwebp: {
        build: {
            options: {
                q: 80,
                alpha_q: 80
            },
            files: [{
                expand: true,
                cwd: './dist/images/', 
                src: ['**/*.{png,jpg,jpeg,gif}'],
                dest: './dist/images/webp'
            }]
        }
    },
    responsive_images: {
        build: {
            options: {
                engine:"im",
                sizes: [{
                    width: 640,
                },{
                    width: 1024,
                },{
                    width: 1920
                }]
            },
            files: [{
                expand: true,
                src: ['**.{jpg,gif,png}'],
                cwd: './assets/images/',
                custom_dest: './dist/images/responsive/{%= width %}/'
            }]
        }
    },
    retinafy: {
        build: {
            options: {
                sizes: {
                    '75%':  { suffix: '@1.5x' },
                    '100%': { suffix: '@2x' }
                }
            },
            files: [{
                expand: true,
                cwd: './dist/images/',
                src: ['**/*.{jpg,jpeg,gif,png}'],
                dest: './dist/images/'
            }],
        }
    },
    sprite:{
        all: {
            src: './assets/sprites/*.png',
            dest: './dist/images/sprite.png',
            destCss: './assets/less/sprite.less'
        }
    },
    notify_hooks: {
        options: {
            enabled: true,
            max_jshint_notifications: 5, // maximum number of notifications from jshint output 
            title: "Project Name", // defaults to the name in package.json, or will use project directory's name 
            success: true, // whether successful grunt executions should be notified automatically 
            duration: 2 // the duration of notification in seconds, for `notify-send only 
        }
    }
});

grunt.task.run('notify_hooks');

grunt.registerTask('html', ['bake', 'htmlmin']);
grunt.registerTask('less_files', ['less', 'autoprefixer']);
grunt.registerTask('js', ['concat', 'uglify']);
grunt.registerTask('img', ['responsive_images', 'retinafy', 'imagemin:images', 'cwebp']);
grunt.registerTask('favicon', ['favicons', 'imagemin:favicons']);
grunt.registerTask('icons', ['sprite', 'imagemin:sprite']);
grunt.registerTask('default', ['html','less_files','js','img','favicon','icons','watch']);
};

Everything works, even grunt-contrib watch, but only for old and modified files. It doesn't see any new files in watched folders. It doesn't work on different versions of grunt-contrib-watch. Any ideas?

node -v v0.12.7

npm -v 2.11.3

OSX 10.10.4 Yosemite

Answer 1

I think you should strip the ./ at the beginning. It never needs to be prepended. It could be related to this issue when ./ is prepended, it breaks some of the events.

Try also setting the options to be:

options: {
  event: ['changed', 'added', 'deleted']
}

The default setting is set to all but it has been reported that sometimes it doesn't work.

If all failed, there is an alternative solution. Drop grunt-contrib-watch and try grunt-simple-watch. Here you can find why grunt-contrib-watch is causing troubles.

Side note: I realized that you are loading all the tasks manually then using load-grunt-task like this:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-favicons');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-imagemin');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-bake');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-htmlmin');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-less');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-autoprefixer');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-concat');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-uglify');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-cwebp');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-responsive-images');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-retinafy');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-spritesmith');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-notify');
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-watch');

require('load-grunt-tasks')(grunt);

For your information; you don't need to load all the tasks because load-grunt-tasks do it for you automatically. load-grunt-tasks scan the packages.json file for the tasks that you have and automatically load them. You can safely remove all the grunt.loadNpmTasks(xxx) and that task will be loaded (as long as it is mentioned in packages.json)