React and Docker - Uncaught Error: Cannot find module 'react-player'

Question

At the top of my react component (Coffee.jsx), I have this import:

import ReactPlayer from 'react-player';

The package 'react-player' is certainly installed, present at package.json and node_modules/.

My code runs inside a docker container. Everytime I spin my containers up, like so:

docker-compose -f docker-compose-dev.yml up -d 

I am getting this error:

./src/components/Coffees.jsx
Module not found: Can't resolve 'react-player' in '/usr/src/app/src/components'

this is what console shows me:

Brewing.jsx:22 Uncaught Error: Cannot find module 'react-player'
    at webpackMissingModule (Brewing.jsx:22)
    at Module../src/components/Coffees.jsx (Brewing.jsx:22)
    at __webpack_require__ (bootstrap:781)
    at fn (bootstrap:149)
    at Module../src/App.jsx (Spotify.css:4)
    at __webpack_require__ (bootstrap:781)
    at fn (bootstrap:149)
    at Module../src/index.js (spotify-auth.js:8)
    at __webpack_require__ (bootstrap:781)
    at fn (bootstrap:149)
    at Object.0 (index.js:10)
    at __webpack_require__ (bootstrap:781)
    at checkDeferredModules (bootstrap:45)
    at Array.webpackJsonpCallback [as push] (bootstrap:32)
    at main.chunk.js:1

---

docker-compose-dev.yml:

  client:
    build:
      context: ./services/client
      dockerfile: Dockerfile-dev
    volumes:
      - './services/client:/usr/src/app'
      - '/usr/src/app/node_modules'
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    environment:
      - NODE_ENV=development
      - REACT_APP_WEB_SERVICE_URL=${REACT_APP_WEB_SERVICE_URL}
    depends_on:
      - web

Dockerfile-dev:

# base image
FROM node:11.12.0-alpine

# set working directory
WORKDIR /usr/src/app

# add `/usr/src/app/node_modules/.bin` to $PATH
ENV PATH /usr/src/app/node_modules/.bin:$PATH

# install and cache app dependencies
COPY package.json /usr/src/app/package.json
COPY package-lock.json /usr/src/app/package-lock.json
RUN npm ci
RUN npm install [email protected] -g --silent

# start app
CMD ["npm", "start"]

---

folder structure:

services/
       docker-compose-dev.yml
       node_modules/
       client/
             Dockerfile-dev
             package.json
             package-lock.json
             node_modules/
                         react-player/

---

Temporay fix:

The hack fixing this is waiting for some time, along with some forced changes in my code either in Coffee.jsx or Brewing.jsx.

After I save the changed code, the package is found.

Then, when I stop containers and up them again, problem resumes. I have trying using the flag --build after up -d, to no avail.

Whats going on? How do I fix this?

---

more persistent fix:

After removing volumes from docker-compose-dev.yml and rebuilding, like so:

#volumes:
      #- './services/client:/usr/src/app'
      #- '/usr/src/app/node_modules'

I still get the error:

client_1           | > [email protected] start /usr/src/app
client_1           | > react-scripts start
client_1           | 
client_1           | Could not find a required file.
client_1           |   Name: index.html
client_1           |   Searched in: /usr/src/app/public
client_1           | npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
client_1           | npm ERR! errno 1
client_1           | npm ERR! [email protected] start: `react-scripts start`
client_1           | npm ERR! Exit status 1
client_1           | npm ERR! 
client_1           | npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] start script.
client_1           | npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
client_1           | 
client_1           | npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
client_1           | npm ERR!     /root/.npm/_logs/2019-11-05T15_14_42_967Z-debug.log

Then it only works if I uncomment volumes again and run the containers with volumes. An answer explaining reasons for

a) temporary fix b) more permanent fix

would be very appreciated.

Answer 1

Managing node_modules is such a pain with docker. There are great discussions on the stackoverflow about how you can run Javascrip app with docker. Here is how I do it,

Dockerfile

FROM node:11.12.0-alpine

# first installed node_modules in cache and copy them to src folder
RUN mkdir /usr/src/cache
WORKDIR /usr/src/cache

COPY package.json .
RUN npm install -q

# now make a different directory for src code 
RUN mkdir /usr/src/app
WORKDIR /usr/src/app

# set path to run packages from node_modules
ENV NODE_PATH=/usr/src/app/node_modules/.bin

COPY . .

docker-compose.yaml

app:
    build: .
    image: app
    container_name: services.app
    volumes:
      - .:/usr/src/app
    ports:
      - 3000:5000 
    # this will copy node_modules to src folder, otherwise node_modules will be wipeed out as we don't
    # have the node_modules in the host machine
    command: /usr/src/app/entrypoint.sh prod

And my entrypoint.sh file looks like

#!/bin/bash

cp -r /usr/src/cache/node_modules/. /usr/src/app/node_modules/

exec npm start

So, the basic idea here is, when you build the image you store the node_modules somewhere in the path, but when you actually run it, you copy that node_modules and place it in the app folder. This way, your local node_modules never clashes with the one in the docker.

You can add node_modules in .dockerignore if you want to make a COPY faster.

Answer 2

First Down services:

docker-compose -f docker-compose-dev.yml down

Then re-build services (without cache):

docker-compose -f docker-compose-dev.yml build --no-cache

In the last run services:

docker-compose -f docker-compose-dev.yml up