node-debug does not break and shows no code

Question

I'm trying to use node-debug to debug my CLI node script. According to everything I've read, I should simply be able to run my script with node-debug, which will start the script with --debug-brk, and open my browser to the node-inspector page.

This all seems to be working fine. I see no output from my script (which indicates the --debug-brk is working), my browser opens, it is connected to node-inspector, and if I kill node-debug, the inspector shows it gets disconnected.

But the inspector interface is empty. There's no code. No stack trace. Nothing.

There aren't a lot of options to node-debug, and none of them look like they would fix the problem I'm having.

node-debug myscript.js

output

debugger listening on port 5858
Node Inspector is now available from http://127.0.0.1:8080/?ws=127.0.0.1:8080&port=5858
Debugging `myscript.js`

inspector Dev console

Assertion failed: Unknown experiment canvasInspection
TypeError: Cannot read property 'createSetting' of undefined

Answer 1

That is the legacy debugger, which had a somewhat rickety foundation to begin with and has since fallen out of sync with what Chrome uses for communication and has been deprecated for a while.

You should instead use the newer built-in inspector via the --inspect flag.

node --inspect myscript.js

There is a userland package, inspect-process, which makes the experience even nicer and works around some potential problems you may run into.

More Resources

https://nodejs.org/en/docs/guides/debugging-getting-started/

https://blog.risingstack.com/how-to-debug-nodej-js-with-the-best-tools-available/