expo: expo in wsl cannot open JS debugger. ( because spawn powershell returns ENOENT )

Summary

I have Chrome and Edge installed on my windows

↓ my powershell result

But if i run expo start and click › Press j │ open debugger, I get this error Error: [LaunchBrowser] Unable to find a browser on the host to open the inspector. Supported browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge

I wrote console.log on few places and found out that this line is returning ENOENT error https://github.com/expo/expo/blob/main/packages/%40expo/dev-server/build/LaunchBrowserImplWindows.js#L123

My child_process.spawn and powershell.exe seems to be working. because this line got the result before reaching line 123 https://github.com/expo/expo/blob/main/packages/%40expo/dev-server/build/LaunchBrowserImplWindows.js#L142

I have no idea howpowershell works, My guess is that env we are passing is wrong.

What platform(s) does this occur on?

Android, iOS

SDK Version

Environment



  expo-env-info 1.0.5 environment info:
    System:
      OS: Linux 5.15 Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS 22.04.2 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)
      Shell: 5.8.1 - /usr/bin/zsh
    Binaries:
      Node: 18.16.1 - ~/.nvm/versions/node/v18.16.1/bin/node
      Yarn: 1.22.19 - ~/.nvm/versions/node/v18.16.1/bin/yarn
      npm: 9.5.1 - ~/.nvm/versions/node/v18.16.1/bin/npm
    npmGlobalPackages:
      eas-cli: 3.15.0
    Expo Workflow: managed

Minimal reproducible example


npx create-turbo@latest -e https://github.com/t3-oss/create-t3-turbo

cd <foldername>/app/expo
pnpm expo start

# press J

About this issue

Original URL
State: open
Created a year ago
Reactions: 2
Comments: 19

Most upvoted comments

I found a workaround for anyone experiencing this issue.

Instead of trying to launch a Windows browser from WSL, you can launch a browser directly within WSL.

First, install Google Chrome in your WSL distro. You should be able to enter google-chrome and get a Chrome browser running directly from WSL.

Next go to node_modules/@expo/dev-server/build/LaunchBrowser.js

On line 72, remove IS_WSL from the if statement.

This causes the proceeding if statement to run, which checks for Linux OS, thus opening the browser in Linux.

welshy557 on Aug 30, 2023

@matart15 to me, there are only 2 things that are “painful” running Expo (Metro) under WSL

LAN port forwarding which is actually easily solved, see my Gist
This issue

younes0 on Aug 31, 2023

@Valetek I looks like this post did start with version 49 as you had assumed. I had been responding to a comment about the file being moved in subsequent versions. Hopefully the grep command will be helpful to others as expo continues to evolve.

Good luck!

TzviCons on Feb 22, 2024

@Valetek I haven’t looked for it there but you should be able to use your code editor to globally search or IS_WSL.

Or on the command prompt grep -nr IS_WSL node_modules/. (adding this to my previous post too)

TzviCons on Feb 22, 2024

@Valetek On version 50.0.6 and 50.0.7 the file is at that location. I added version number and a github link to my previous post.

TzviCons on Feb 22, 2024