Nestjs Error: Cannot find module './app.controller'

Question

I cant seem to locate where the error is coming from as the app compiled with Found 0 errors. Watching for file changes. I have seen similar resolve on StackOverflow but none seem to address the issue

Here is the stack trace

internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:797
    throw err;
    ^

Error: Cannot find module './app.controller'
Require stack:
- C:\Users\DELL\Documents\DokunFiles\Nestjs\app\api\dist\src\app.module.js
- C:\Users\DELL\Documents\DokunFiles\Nestjs\app\api\dist\src\main.js

With the appModule below, the app controller is properly imported into the app module

app.module.ts

import { Module } from '@nestjs/common';
import { MongooseModule } from '@nestjs/mongoose';

import { AppController } from './app.controller';
import { AppService } from './app.service';
import { UserModule } from './user/user.module';


@Module({
  imports: [MongooseModule.forRoot(process.env.MONGO_URI,
    {
      useNewUrlParser: true,
      useUnifiedTopology: true
    })
    , UserModule,
  ],
  controllers: [AppController],
  providers: [AppService],
})
export class AppModule { }

app.controller.ts

import { Controller, Get } from '@nestjs/common';
import { AppService } from './app.service';

@Controller()
export class AppController {
  constructor(private readonly appService: AppService) {}

  @Get()
  getHello(): string {
    return this.appService.getHello();
  }
}

Answer 1

Run:

npm run prebuild

or

rimraf dist

or

 rm -rf dist/

And try again.

---

I had the same issue:

stanislas@yeji > nest start                                                                                                    api -> master ! ? RC=130
internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:983
  throw err;
  ^

Error: Cannot find module './app.controller'
Require stack:
- /Users/stanislas/git/soundbase/api/dist/src/app.module.js
- /Users/stanislas/git/soundbase/api/dist/src/main.js
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:980:15)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:862:27)
    at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1042:19)
    at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:77:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/stanislas/git/soundbase/api/dist/src/app.module.js:13:26)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1156:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1176:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1000:32)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:899:14)
    at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1042:19) {
  code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
  requireStack: [
    '/Users/stanislas/git/soundbase/api/dist/src/app.module.js',
    '/Users/stanislas/git/soundbase/api/dist/src/main.js'
  ]
}

And noticed the controller was indeed not compiled:

stanislas@yeji > ll dist/src/                                                                      api -> master ! ?
total 48
-rw-r--r--  1 stanislas  staff   138B Apr 19 17:45 app.module.d.ts
-rw-r--r--  1 stanislas  staff   2.1K Apr 19 17:45 app.module.js
-rw-r--r--  1 stanislas  staff   753B Apr 19 17:45 app.module.js.map
-rw-r--r--  1 stanislas  staff    11B Apr 19 17:45 main.d.ts
-rw-r--r--  1 stanislas  staff   340B Apr 19 17:45 main.js
-rw-r--r--  1 stanislas  staff   290B Apr 19 17:45 main.js.map
drwxr-xr-x  5 stanislas  staff   160B Apr 19 17:52 migration

But I noticed it worked as prod:

stanislas@yeji > npm run build && npm run start:prod                                                                             api -> master ! ? RC=1

> [email protected] prebuild /Users/stanislas/git/soundbase/api
> rimraf dist


> [email protected] build /Users/stanislas/git/soundbase/api
> nest build


> [email protected] start:prod /Users/stanislas/git/soundbase/api
> node dist/main

[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [NestFactory] Starting Nest application...
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [InstanceLoader] PassportModule dependencies initialized +34ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [InstanceLoader] TypeOrmModule dependencies initialized +0ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [InstanceLoader] JwtModule dependencies initialized +1ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [InstanceLoader] AuthModule dependencies initialized +0ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [InstanceLoader] AppModule dependencies initialized +1ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [InstanceLoader] TypeOrmCoreModule dependencies initialized +56ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [InstanceLoader] TypeOrmModule dependencies initialized +1ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [InstanceLoader] UsersModule dependencies initialized +0ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [RoutesResolver] AppController {}: +3ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/auth/login, POST} route +3ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/profile, GET} route +0ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [RoutesResolver] UserController {/users}: +0ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/users, POST} route +1ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/users, GET} route +0ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/users/:id, GET} route +1ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/users/:id, PUT} route +0ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/users/:id, DELETE} route +0ms
[Nest] 95175   - 04/19/2020, 6:40:45 PM   [NestApplication] Nest application successfully started +2ms

And then it automagically started working again:

stanislas@yeji > npm start                                                                                                     api -> master ! ? RC=130

> [email protected] start /Users/stanislas/git/soundbase/api
> nest start

[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:00 PM   [NestFactory] Starting Nest application...
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:00 PM   [InstanceLoader] PassportModule dependencies initialized +35ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:00 PM   [InstanceLoader] TypeOrmModule dependencies initialized +0ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:00 PM   [InstanceLoader] JwtModule dependencies initialized +0ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:00 PM   [InstanceLoader] AuthModule dependencies initialized +1ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:00 PM   [InstanceLoader] AppModule dependencies initialized +0ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:01 PM   [InstanceLoader] TypeOrmCoreModule dependencies initialized +56ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:01 PM   [InstanceLoader] TypeOrmModule dependencies initialized +0ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:01 PM   [InstanceLoader] UsersModule dependencies initialized +1ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:01 PM   [RoutesResolver] AppController {}: +3ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:01 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/auth/login, POST} route +2ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:01 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/profile, GET} route +1ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:01 PM   [RoutesResolver] UserController {/users}: +0ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:01 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/users, POST} route +1ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:01 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/users, GET} route +0ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:01 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/users/:id, GET} route +0ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:01 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/users/:id, PUT} route +1ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:01 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/users/:id, DELETE} route +0ms
[Nest] 95255   - 04/19/2020, 6:41:01 PM   [NestApplication] Nest application successfully started +2ms

Since I already tried nest build && node dist/main.js beforehand, I'm pretty sure npm run prebuild aka rimraf dist (which just rm -rf dist/) did the trick. Since the issue was in the dist folder, that seems logical enough for me. Not sure what the exact issue was though.

Answer 2

Look for "incremental": true in your tsconfig.json file. The true makes incremental updates. Setting it to false hopefully will save you having to clean dist every time

Answer 3

Check file extension. In my case file with controller has .js extension, but must .ts