Cannot start PhantomJS

[etiennebr]

Hello, this seems to be somewhat related to issue #558. However I'm new to all this (npm, grunt, karma) and I'm not really sure of the identity of the problem.

When I
grunt karma:unit
I get this sad result

Running "karma:unit" (karma) task
INFO [karma]: Karma v0.12.28 server started at http://localhost:8080/
INFO [launcher]: Starting browser PhantomJS
ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS
    Error: spawn EACCES
INFO [launcher]: Trying to start PhantomJS again (1/2).
ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS
    Error: spawn EACCES
INFO [launcher]: Trying to start PhantomJS again (2/2).
ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS
    Error: spawn EACCES
ERROR [launcher]: PhantomJS failed 2 times (cannot start). Giving up.
Warning: Task "karma:unit" failed. Use --force to continue.
Aborted due to warnings.

With my limited understanding I've tried installing and reinstalling (global and/or not) phantomjs but it didn't work out.

I'm on Ubuntu 12.04
karma@0.12.28
node@0.10.34
phantomjs@1.9.12

However, when I $ phantomjs --version, I get 1.9.8. which is odd. Checking on the phantomjs website seems to confirm the latests release is phantomjs 1.9.8.

$ npm remove phantomjs -g
unbuild phantomjs@1.9.12
$ npm remove phantomjs
unbuild phantomjs@1.9.12
$  phantomjs --version
bash: ~/.npm-packages/bin/phantomjs: No such file or directory

So I don't think there's another installation that karma could refer to. At this point, when I launch grunt karma:unit it accordingly say that phantomjs isn't there.

Then I reinstalled phantomjs

$ npm install phantomjs

> phantomjs@1.9.12 install ~/mytodo/node_modules/phantomjs
> node install.js

Downloading https://bitbucket.org/ariya/phantomjs/downloads/phantomjs-1.9.8-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
Saving to /tmp/phantomjs/phantomjs-1.9.8-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
Receiving...
  [======================================--] 95% 0.0s
Received 12854K total.
Extracting tar contents (via spawned process)
Removing /media/Fermi/workspace/mytodo/node_modules/phantomjs/lib/phantom
Copying extracted folder /tmp/phantomjs/phantomjs-1.9.8-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2-extract-1418991182513/phantomjs-1.9.8-linux-x86_64 -> ~/mytodo/node_modules/phantomjs/lib/phantom
Removing /tmp/phantomjs/phantomjs-1.9.8-linux-x86_64.tar.bz2-extract-1418991182513
Writing location.js file
Done. Phantomjs binary available at ~/mytodo/node_modules/phantomjs/lib/phantom/bin/phantomjs
phantomjs@1.9.12 node_modules/phantomjs
├── which@1.0.8
├── progress@1.1.8
├── rimraf@2.2.8
├── ncp@1.0.1
├── kew@0.4.0
├── adm-zip@0.4.4
├── request-progress@0.3.1 (throttleit@0.0.2)
├── mkdirp@0.5.0 (minimist@0.0.8)
├── npmconf@2.0.9 (uid-number@0.0.5, inherits@2.0.1, osenv@0.1.0, ini@1.3.2, once@1.3.1, semver@4.1.0, nopt@3.0.1, config-chain@1.1.8)
└── request@2.42.0 (caseless@0.6.0, json-stringify-safe@5.0.0, aws-sign2@0.5.0, forever-agent@0.5.2, stringstream@0.0.4, oauth-sign@0.4.0, tunnel-agent@0.4.0, qs@1.2.2, node-uuid@1.4.2, mime-types@1.0.2, tough-cookie@0.12.1, http-signature@0.10.0, form-data@0.1.4, bl@0.9.3, hawk@1.1.1)

Still, karma complains Cannot start PhantomJS Error: spawn EACCES.

[maksimr]

@etiennebr remove global phantomjs and install it to the project

[etiennebr]

Nope :(

$ npm remove phantomjs
$ npm remove phantomjs -g
$ npm install phantomjs

Then still that error...

$ grunt karma:unit
[...]
ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS
    Error: spawn EACCES
[...]

[maksimr]

Do you have env variable PHANTOMJS_BIN?

echo $PHANTOMJS_BIN

[etiennebr]

I added it to my .bashrc. ~/mytodo/node_modules/phantomjs/lib/phantom/bin/phantomjs.
And I should be able to execute.

ls -l $PHANTOMJS_BIN 
-rwxr-xr-x 1 etienne etienne 38346752 dec 19 09:21 ~/mytodo/node_modules/phantomjs/lib/phantom/bin/phantomjs

[maksimr]

@etiennebr seems karma does not have access to this file.
Try remove/unset variable PHANTOMJS_BIN and run karma in project.

[maksimr]

@etiennebr karma installed locally?

[etiennebr]

How can I change access for karma ? I removed karma globally and installed it locally only, but still the same issue.

$ npm remove karma -g
$ npm remove karma
$ npm install karma
$ grunt karma
[...]
ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS
    Error: spawn EACCES
[...]

While installation seems to work fine, karma isn't in ./node_modules/.bin/karma[1] but in ./node_modules/karma/bin/karma, looking around, I think it's normal though.

$ ./node_modules/karma/bin/karma start
bash: ./node_modules/karma/bin/karma: Permission denied
$ ls -l ./node_modules/karma/bin/karma
-rwxrwxrwx 1 etienne etienne 50 nov 25 10:26 ./node_modules/karma/bin/karma

Now after some googling it seems related to file access, and similar to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26968388/executing-karma-giving-permission-denied-error, but chmod 777 didn't make it. On phantomjs issues, I found Medium/phantomjs#102, but using sudo doesn't seem to apply; I've used this solution instead https://github.com/sindresorhus/guides/blob/master/npm-global-without-sudo.md.

1: the directory stated in doc http://karma-runner.github.io/0.8/intro/installation.html

[maksimr]

Hm... really very strange behavior. Myself I use Ubuntu and never met such problems on 12 and 14

As a suggestion try use nvm and install karma-cli globally for running karma from console(karma start):

npm install -g karma-cli

Thanks!

[maksimr]

Close, because problem does not in karma itself.

[egeland]

Just wanted to note, as I had a similar issue today - phantomjs on Ubuntu needs the libfontconfig package (and/or the libfontconfig-dev package - I installed both) or it won't start..

[dominicumbeer]

@egeland Your solution fixed the problem. The package was missing on my Ubuntu. I got following error message:

INFO [karma]: Karma v0.12.37 server started at http://localhost:9018/
INFO [launcher]: Starting browser PhantomJS
ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS

INFO [launcher]: Trying to start PhantomJS again (1/2).
ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS

INFO [launcher]: Trying to start PhantomJS again (2/2).
ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS

ERROR [launcher]: PhantomJS failed 2 times (cannot start). Giving up.

Unfortunately this message does not give any hints about the problem, so I'm happy that I found your post.

[egeland]

@dominicumbeer Glad it helped - your errors are exactly what I was seeing today.

So mysterious, until you run phantomjs by itself (not with --version), then you see the cause..

[tjmonsi]

@egeland : Good thing I found this post. I'm also having problems with PhantomJS not running in Karma in Meteor's velocity JS

Kudos to you :)

[luxueyan]

@egeland Me too!

npm install phantomjs
npm install grunt-karma
npm install karma
npm install karma-cli
npm install karma-phantomjs-launcher

grunt karma & karam start & sudo karam start all not work， but sudo grunt karma works fine

  ✗ karma start
ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS
    Error: spawn EACCES
ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS
    Error: spawn EACCES
ERROR [launcher]: Cannot start PhantomJS
    Error: spawn EACCES
ERROR [launcher]: PhantomJS failed 2 times (cannot start). Giving up.
------
✗ sudo karma start
Password:

sudo karma start is stuck

[egeland]

@luxueyan Did you install the packages as I mentioned above?
Did you try running phantomjs by itself, no options?

[luxueyan]

@egeland Sorry, i didn't say my system is os x 10.9.5.
I run phantomjs by itself well without any options.
In my project

node_modules/phantomjs/bin/phantomjs

Now the only works way for me is : sudo grunt karma.
Thanks!

[alexserver]

@egeland +1 to your solution. Thank you very much for helping us !

[jangaraj]

RHEL/CentOS solution:

yum install -y fontconfig freetype-devel

[pscheit]

i think libfontconfig-dev isnt required (debian:jessie)

[justindiaw]

@egeland Thank you so much! You saved my day!

[icfantv]

Just a note for others that we came across this issue when the script being executed wasn't actually executable. That is, a simple chmod +x SCRIPT_NAME fixed it for us.