NodeJS - nodemon not restarting my server

Question

I installed NodeJS (4.4.5) and then proceed to install nodemon (1.9.2) as well, I follow all the instrucctions of instalation (npm install -g nodemon)

I created a new folder, inside I have my server.js with some basic code:

var http = require('http');

http.createServer(function (request, response){
    response.writeHead( 200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'} );
    response.write("Hello world");
    response.end();
}).listen(3000, 'localhost');

console.log('http://localhost:3000');

So when I run in my console "nodemon server.js" I get this:

[nodemon] 1.9.2
[nodemon] to restart at any time, enter `rs`
[nodemon] watching: *.*
[nodemon] starting `node server.js`
http://localhost:3000

(Which means that is running fine)

But when I make some changes in my server.js, It doesn't restart the server

What could be the issue?

Answer 1

In some networked environments (such as a container running nodemon reading across a mounted drive), you will need to use the legacyWatch: true which enabled Chokidar's polling.

Via the CLI, use either --legacy-watch or -L for short:

nodemon -L

Answer 2

I had the same issue on nodemon 1.9.2 : 0 files were watched by nodemon

(try verbose mode nodemon server.js -V to get more information)

After some research, this issue was due to my root directory name : My root directory was named "mysite.git" thus nodemon was watching 0 file. I had renamed my root directory without the dot and nodemon now works as expected.

Remove all special characters from your root directory and nodemon should work as expected.

Answer 3

You can try running like this nodemon -L yourapp.js, something like that:

"scripts": {
    "start": "node index.js",
    "dev": "nodemon -L index.js "
 }

And run command:

npm run dev

This worked for me!

Answer 4

I just hit what seemed to be the same issue where I would make changes to my code and save them but nodemon wouldn't restart my server. The only way I could update was via 'rs' in the console. I ended here looking for a solution but then decided to just re-install nodemon as there was no good explanation for why it wasn't working:

npm uninstall nodemon
npm install nodemon

After reinstalling the automatic restart on code change worked.