cypress: cy.readFile("path-to-file") failed because the file does not exist, even though it does

Hello! 😃 cy.readFile doesn’t seem to find files at a given, correct path anymore. I noticed this behavior using cypress-dark plugin and my own theme for the test runner, details as following.

Current behavior:

When using dark theme from cypress-dark plugin and my own theme I get the following error message right at the beginning of every test:

CypressError: Timed out retrying: cy.readFile("/node_modules/cypress-dark/src/dark.css") failed because the file does not exist at the following path:

/node_modules/cypress-dark/src/dark.css

Because this error occurred during a 'before all' hook we are skipping all of the remaining tests.

Actual file and path itself are correct and work as soon as I rollback to 3.3.0. I can reproduce that behavior as I use cy.readFile in my tests as well.

Desired behavior:

I would love to use cy.readFile as before to use dark- and my custom theme for Cypress’ test runner.

Steps to reproduce: (app code and test code)

Install version 3.3.1
Easiest way: Use dark theme from cypress-dark plugin, set "useDarkTheme": true, in cypress.json and run any test
Alternative: Use the following command anywhere in your test:

cy.readFile('./a/valid/path-to-file.spec.js');

Versions

Cypress 3.3.1, older versions are not affected
Browser: Chrome 74
Operating system: Manjaro linux (local development), Cypress on docker image cypress/browsers:node8.15.1-chrome73

Thank you very much in advance! ❤️

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 5 years ago
Reactions: 1
Comments: 15 (6 by maintainers)

Commits related to this issue

Update git submodules * Update docs/submodules/vid.git from branch 'master' to 607ea3dac27af31e3c8571b4f170dc7fd5c3b3b1 - Cypress>=3.3.1 readFile() does not expect a relative file-path starting w... — committed to onap/doc by ittays 5 years ago
Cypress>=3.3.1 readFile() does not expect a relative file-path starting with / See: https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/4352#issuecomment-507963062 Issue-ID: VID-687 Change-Id: I4f3292e80d2... — committed to onap/archived-vid by ittays 5 years ago
Update git submodules * Update docs/submodules/vid.git from branch 'master' to b0a5365842404f32667ba6cbda12853323624eaf - Cypress>=3.3.1 readFile() does not expect a relative file-path starting w... — committed to onap/doc by ittays 5 years ago
Cypress>=3.3.1 readFile() does not expect a relative file-path starting with / See: https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/issues/4352#issuecomment-507963062 Issue-ID: VID-687 Change-Id: I5f5f34be85... — committed to onap/archived-vid by ittays 5 years ago

Most upvoted comments

Cypress cannot find this with the trailing / in front of node_modules, so using cy.readFile("node_modules/cypress-dark/src/dark.css") should work as a workaround today until a new Cypress fix goes out.

This is a bug and has nothing to do with node_modules, so can be replicated with any directory relative to the projectRoot.

With my file being present at projectRoot/cypress/fixtures/example.json, there are the following differences in the versions.

3.3.0

it('Reads file', () => {
  cy.readFile('cypress/fixtures/example.json')   // passes
  cy.readFile('/cypress/fixtures/example.json')  // passes
})

3.3.1

it('Reads file', () => {
  cy.readFile('cypress/fixtures/example.json')   // passes
  cy.readFile('/cypress/fixtures/example.json')  // fails
})

Looking through the commits between 3.3.0 and 3.3.1, I picked out this little commit https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/pull/4241/commits/c75a643d42c1ae36c80111bf8e2d9556f06c60e3

Instead of setting the filePath to read/write by calling path.join(projectRoot, file) we now call path.resolve(projectRoot, file).

I’m sure this was expected to cause no changes, but it has.

path.join()
- ✅ cy.readFile('cypress/fixtures/example.json'): /Users/jennifer/Dev/cypress-example-kitchensink/cypress/fixtures/example.json
- ✅ cy.readFile('/cypress/fixtures/example.json'): /Users/jennifer/Dev/cypress-example-kitchensink/cypress/fixtures/example.json
path.resolve()
- ✅ cy.readFile('cypress/fixtures/example.json') : /Users/jennifer/Dev/cypress-example-kitchensink/cypress/fixtures/example.json
- ❌ cy.readFile('/cypress/fixtures/example.json'): /cypress/fixtures/example.json

jennifer-shehane on May 31, 2019