Angular Chrome Dev Tools extension error: "Angular DevTools only supports development builds."

Question

I am trying to debug Angular app with Angular DevTools for Chrome Extension, but I am getting an error when I try to use it:

We detected an application built with production configuration. Angular DevTools only supports development builds.

Can I revert project to dev mode?

Answer 1

You may be missing a development configuration for your application.

In your angular.json navigate to architect -> build -> configurations and add these lines, below the definition of the production build:

"configurations": {
  "production": {
    // already there!
  },
  "development": { // this is new!
    "buildOptimizer": false,
    "optimization": false,
    "vendorChunk": true,
    "extractLicenses": false,
    "sourceMap": true,
    "namedChunks": true
  }
},
"defaultConfiguration": "production"

And to run the build in development mode just type the next command: ng build --configuration development .

Answer 2

Btw: A complete working configuration (further below), and if the configuration is not the problem, then:

• update chrome,
• remove and re-install the extension
• (and allow in its configuration the access of file-URLs too)
• start with eg ng serve (if mono repo npx nx serve <projectname> )

You would then see, something like that (depends on your own configuration):

** Angular Live Development Server is 
listening on localhost:4200, 
open your browser on http://localhost:4200/ **

• Open it in the browser
• Open Chrome/Firefox/.. DevTools
• Go to the section Angular

And you should see:

Last but not least: An example of complete configuration:

{
  "$schema": "./node_modules/@angular/cli/lib/config/schema.json",
  "version": 1,
  "newProjectRoot": "projects",
  "projects": {
    "ng14.0.2": {
      "projectType": "application",
      "schematics": {
        "@schematics/angular:component": {
          "style": "scss"
        }
      },
      "root": "",
      "sourceRoot": "src",
      "prefix": "app",
      "architect": {
        "build": {
          "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:browser",
          "options": {
            "outputPath": "dist/ng14.0.2",
            "index": "src/index.html",
            "main": "src/main.ts",
            "polyfills": "src/polyfills.ts",
            "tsConfig": "tsconfig.app.json",
            "inlineStyleLanguage": "scss",
            "assets": [
              "src/favicon.ico",
              "src/assets"
            ],
            "styles": [
              "src/styles.scss"
            ],
            "scripts": []
          },
          "configurations": {
            "production": {
              "budgets": [
                {
                  "type": "initial",
                  "maximumWarning": "500kb",
                  "maximumError": "1mb"
                },
                {
                  "type": "anyComponentStyle",
                  "maximumWarning": "2kb",
                  "maximumError": "4kb"
                }
              ],
              "fileReplacements": [
                {
                  "replace": "src/environments/environment.ts",
                  "with": "src/environments/environment.prod.ts"
                }
              ],
              "outputHashing": "all"
            },
            "development": {
              "buildOptimizer": false,
              "optimization": false,
              "vendorChunk": true,
              "extractLicenses": false,
              "sourceMap": true,
              "namedChunks": true
            }
          },
          "defaultConfiguration": "production"
        },
        "serve": {
          "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:dev-server",
          "configurations": {
            "production": {
              "browserTarget": "ng14.0.2:build:production"
            },
            "development": {
              "browserTarget": "ng14.0.2:build:development"
            }
          },
          "defaultConfiguration": "development"
        },
        "extract-i18n": {
          "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:extract-i18n",
          "options": {
            "browserTarget": "ng14.0.2:build"
          }
        },
        "test": {
          "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:karma",
          "options": {
            "main": "src/test.ts",
            "polyfills": "src/polyfills.ts",
            "tsConfig": "tsconfig.spec.json",
            "karmaConfig": "karma.conf.js",
            "inlineStyleLanguage": "scss",
            "assets": [
              "src/favicon.ico",
              "src/assets"
            ],
            "styles": [
              "src/styles.scss"
            ],
            "scripts": []
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}