Can't run custom module on AWS/nodejs. Exits with error: Cannot find module

Question

I want to switch to a fork of the parse-server module on AWS elastic beanstalk, but no matter what I try I get this error when the server tries to start up:

Error: Cannot find module 'parse-server'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:636:15)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:562:25)
    at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:692:17)
    at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:25:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/var/app/current/index.js:64:21)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:778:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:789:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:653:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:593:12)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:585:3)

The original module works without a problem:

• in package.json:

   "parse-server": "3.10.0",

• but neither of these ones do work:

   "parse-server": "https://github.com/andrewking0207/parse-server.git#appleAuth",

   "parse-server": "andrewking0207/parse-server.git#appleAuth",

when I ssh into to the ec2 instance the module is installed inside node-modules. What am I missing here?? Locally on my machine everything runs fine.

Answer 1

You can not install directly from a GitHub fork because it does not have the lib folder which is created during the build process. There is a workaround though:

1 - Clone your fork to your machine 2 - Remove the lib folder from the .gitignore file 3 - Run npm install 4 - Run npm build 5 - Commit the changes to your local git 6 - Push the commit to your remote fort branch at GitHub

Then you can try to install it again and it should work. I just wanted to make clear that it is a workaround and not the recommended way to use Parse Server. If you explain what you want to achieve by using your own fork, I can try to advice about the "right" way to be done.