Webpack sometimes fails to detect changes saved with Intellij Idea

Question

I'm developing a JavaScript/React application in Intellij Idea and I'm using webpack-dev-server to incrementally build my files. That means that the dev server is watching the files and if a file gets changes, webpack rebuilds it. Pretty standard scenario.

Unfortunately, webpack sometimes decides to ignore certain files. I can change them all I want but webpack does nothing. I have not been able to determine any pattern on which files get ignored. It's arbitrary. Sometimes I just create a new file and webpack ignores it.

What is interesting though is that it only happens when I perform the save using Intellij Idea. If I open the file in another editor (for example vim) and save it, the file gets correctly rebuilt. Actually, simple touch file.js is enough to trigger rebuilding.

I guess there is something wrong in how Intellij Idea saves files. Any ideas?

Answer 1

This is due to an IDE feature known as "safe write". When enabled, the IDE will write the changes to a temporary file over the real one. This means webpack's file watching mechanism cannot pick up the changes. Disable this feature to fix the problem. Reference.