Running Node.js app from start script results in “Cannot find module” error

Question

I just put together my first Express app. I can run the server without issue using node server.js but when I attempt to use a start script (which it seems Heroku needs), I get the following error. Unlike similar questions where the module in question appears to be a package, I cannot see what "module" is being referred to. I have tried deleting npm and npm-cache , node-modules , etc.

OS: Windows 8.1
Node: v8.11.3
NPM: v5.6.0

Error: Cannot find module 'C:\Users\Derek\Documents\Cloud\Projects\2018-2019\NodeTest\example-server\server.js'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:547:15)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:474:25)
    at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:693:10)
    at startup (bootstrap_node.js:191:16)
    at bootstrap_node.js:612:3
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! example-server@1.0.0 start: `node server.js`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the example-server@1.0.0 start script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional log
ging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\Derek\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_logs\2018-09-09T07_27_10_7
14Z-debug.log

My package.json :

{
  "name": "example-server",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "main": "src/server.js",
  "private": true,
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node server.js"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "body-parser": "^1.18.3",
    "dotenv": "^6.0.0",
    "express": "^4.16.3",
    "firebase-admin": "^6.0.0",
    "pg": "^7.4.3"
  }
}

Project structure:

example-server   
└───node_modules
└───src
│   └───server.js
│
└───package.json

And here is the output from the log file:

0 info it worked if it ends with ok
1 verbose cli [ 'C:\\Development\\nodejs\\node.exe',
1 verbose cli   'C:\\Development\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js',
1 verbose cli   'start' ]
2 info using npm@5.6.0
3 info using node@v8.11.3
4 verbose run-script [ 'prestart', 'start', 'poststart' ]
5 info lifecycle example-server@1.0.0~prestart: example-server@1.0.0
6 info lifecycle example-server@1.0.0~start: example-server@1.0.0
7 verbose lifecycle example-server@1.0.0~start: unsafe-perm in lifecycle true
8 verbose lifecycle example-server@1.0.0~start: PATH: C:\Development\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\npm-lifecycle\node-gyp-bin;C:\Users\Derek\Documents\Cloud\Projects\2018-2019\NodeTest\example-server\node_modules\.bin;C:\Development\PostgreSQL\10\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\javapath;C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-7.0.7-Q16;C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v8.0\bin;C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v8.0\libnvvp;C:\Development\Python3\;C:\Development\Python3\Scripts;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Intel\Shared Files\cpp\bin\Intel64;C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files\Intel\WiFi\bin\;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intel\WirelessCommon\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Shared;C:\Development\cURL\bin;C:\Development\Python27\;C:\Program Files (x86)\GtkSharp\2.12\bin;C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin;C:\Development\cygwin64\bin;C:\Development\MinGW\bin;C:\Development\ChucK\/bin;C:\Program Files\Git LFS;C:\Development\ANDROID_SDK;C:\Development\ANDROID_SDK\tools;C:\Program Files (x86)\WinMerge;C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone\;C:\Development\Yarn\bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files\dotnet\;C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common;C:\Program Files\Amazon\AWSCLI\;C:\Development\nodejs\;C:\Program Files\heroku\bin;C:\Users\Derek\AppData\Local\GitHub\PortableGit_69bd5e6f85e4842f07db71c9618a621154c52254\bin;C:\Development\flutter\bin;C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-7.0.7-Q16;C:\Development\ffmpeg-3.4.1-win64-static\bin;C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v8.0\bin;C:\Development\Python3\Scripts\;C:\Development\Python3\;C:\Development\RailsInstaller\Ruby2.2.0\bin;C:\Development\ANDROID_SDK\platform-tools\;C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath;C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\Program Files\Intel\iCLS Client\;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\DAL;C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Intel(R) Management Engine Components\IPT;C:\Program Files\Intel\WiFi\bin\;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intel\WirelessCommon\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Shared;C:\Development\cURL\bin;C:\Users\Derek\AppData\Roaming\npm
9 verbose lifecycle example-server@1.0.0~start: CWD: C:\Users\Derek\Documents\Cloud\Projects\2018-2019\NodeTest\example-server
10 silly lifecycle example-server@1.0.0~start: Args: [ '/d /s /c', 'node server.js' ]
11 silly lifecycle example-server@1.0.0~start: Returned: code: 1  signal: null
12 info lifecycle example-server@1.0.0~start: Failed to exec start script
13 verbose stack Error: example-server@1.0.0 start: `node server.js`
13 verbose stack Exit status 1
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.<anonymous> (C:\Development\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\npm-lifecycle\index.js:285:16)
13 verbose stack     at emitTwo (events.js:126:13)
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:214:7)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (C:\Development\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\npm-lifecycle\lib\spawn.js:55:14)
13 verbose stack     at emitTwo (events.js:126:13)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:214:7)
13 verbose stack     at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:925:16)
13 verbose stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:209:5)
14 verbose pkgid example-server@1.0.0
15 verbose cwd C:\Users\Derek\Documents\Cloud\Projects\2018-2019\NodeTest\example-server\src
16 verbose Windows_NT 6.3.9600
17 verbose argv "C:\\Development\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Development\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "start"
18 verbose node v8.11.3
19 verbose npm  v5.6.0
20 error code ELIFECYCLE
21 error errno 1
22 error example-server@1.0.0 start: `node server.js`
22 error Exit status 1
23 error Failed at the example-server@1.0.0 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 don't mean to just dump my errors here but I'm quite new to Node and have spent several hours Googling to no avail.

Answer 1

Your file path for server.js is wrong in "start": "node server.js"

try: "start": "node src/server.js"