Why is npm react-scripts producing a syntax error when I run `npm run start`? [duplicate]

Question

So I've been working on a full stack React app for a few months now. For some reason, seemingly out of no where, when I tried to run npm run start on the command line, it produced the following error;

// npm run start

> [email protected] start /Users/eden/Documents/GitHub/Pair./pair
> react-scripts start

/Users/eden/Documents/GitHub/Pair./pair/node_modules/react-dev-utils/WebpackDevServerUtils.js:166
  compiler.hooks.done.tap('done', async stats => {
                                  ^^^^^

SyntaxError: missing ) after argument list
    at createScript (vm.js:56:10)
    at Object.runInThisContext (vm.js:97:10)
    at Module._compile (module.js:542:28)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:579:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:487:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:446:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:438:3)
    at Module.require (module.js:497:17)
    at require (internal/module.js:20:19)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/eden/Documents/GitHub/Pair./pair/node_modules/react-scripts/scripts/start.js:45:5)
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! [email protected] start: `react-scripts start`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] start script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /Users/eden/.npm/_logs/2019-02-11T01_36_36_244Z-debug.log

I've tried the following approaches;

• uninstalling/reinstalling node
• uninstalling/reinstalling npm
• Ensuring node and npm were version 6 or higher
• deleting node_modules and package-lock.json and re-running npm-i
• uninstalling/reinstalling react-scripts
• downgrading react-scripts
• running npm install --save react react-dom react-scripts
• uninstalling/reinstalling react-dev-utils

I even tried copying/pasting contents of WebpackDevServerUtils.js in the GitHub homepage of react-dev-utils to my local node_modules/react-dev-utils/WebpackDevServerUtils.js to resolve the syntax error.

I have no idea why this is happening. Below is the log of this run;

0 info it worked if it ends with ok
1 verbose cli [ '/Users/eden/.nvm/versions/node/v6.11.2/bin/node',
1 verbose cli   '/usr/local/bin/npm',
1 verbose cli   'run',
1 verbose cli   'start' ]
2 info using [email protected]
3 info using [email protected]
4 verbose run-script [ 'prestart', 'start', 'poststart' ]
5 info lifecycle [email protected]~prestart: [email protected]
6 info lifecycle [email protected]~start: [email protected]
7 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~start: unsafe-perm in lifecycle true
8 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~start: PATH: /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/node-gyp-bin:/Users/eden/Documents/GitHub/Pair./pair/node_modules/.bin:/Users/eden/.nvm/versions/node/v6.11.2/bin:/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/latest/bin:/usr/local:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/latest/bin:/Users/eden/.rvm/bin
9 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~start: CWD: /Users/eden/Documents/GitHub/Pair./pair
10 silly lifecycle [email protected]~start: Args: [ '-c', 'react-scripts start' ]
11 silly lifecycle [email protected]~start: Returned: code: 1  signal: null
12 info lifecycle [email protected]~start: Failed to exec start script
13 verbose stack Error: [email protected] start: `react-scripts start`
13 verbose stack Exit status 1
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/index.js:301:16)
13 verbose stack     at emitTwo (events.js:106:13)
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:191:7)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/lib/spawn.js:55:14)
13 verbose stack     at emitTwo (events.js:106:13)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:191:7)
13 verbose stack     at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:891:16)
13 verbose stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:226:5)
14 verbose pkgid [email protected]
15 verbose cwd /Users/eden/Documents/GitHub/Pair./pair
16 verbose Darwin 18.2.0
17 verbose argv "/Users/eden/.nvm/versions/node/v6.11.2/bin/node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "run" "start"
18 verbose node v6.11.2
19 verbose npm  v6.4.1
20 error code ELIFECYCLE
21 error errno 1
22 error [email protected] start: `react-scripts start`
22 error Exit status 1
23 error Failed at the [email protected] start script.
23 error This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
24 verbose exit [ 1, true ]

I have looked at line 166 of WebpackDevServerUtils.js, and used ESLint to ID syntax errors and it couldn't find anything.

Consequently, my question is this: How do I resolve this obscure error?

Answer 1

The error seems to be on async and you are using node 6 which doesn't support async / await. Update to the latest version of node that supports it (7.6) and you should be good.