clean-webpack-plugin: Error: ENOTEMPTY: directory not empty

Pretty regularly, I see the following error when starting webpack. My dist folder is typically a few folders deep. I usually just run webpack again and it works fine, but I thought I’d log an issue in case anyone else is seeing this as well:

C:\path\to\project\node_modules\webpack-dev-server\bin\webpack-dev-server.js:345
                throw e;
                ^

Error: ENOTEMPTY: directory not empty, rmdir 'C:\path\to\project\dist\Views'
    at Object.fs.rmdirSync (fs.js:856:18)
    at rmkidsSync (C:\path\to\project\node_modules\clean-webpack-plugin\node_modules\rimraf\rimraf.js:342:11)
    at rmdirSync (C:\path\to\project\node_modules\clean-webpack-plugin\node_modules\rimraf\rimraf.js:332:7)
    at rimrafSync (C:\path\to\project\node_modules\clean-webpack-plugin\node_modules\rimraf\rimraf.js:303:9)
    at C:\path\to\project\node_modules\clean-webpack-plugin\node_modules\rimraf\rimraf.js:340:5
    at Array.forEach (native)
    at rmkidsSync (C:\path\to\project\node_modules\clean-webpack-plugin\node_modules\rimraf\rimraf.js:339:26)
    at rmdirSync (C:\path\to\project\node_modules\clean-webpack-plugin\node_modules\rimraf\rimraf.js:332:7)
    at Function.rimrafSync [as sync] (C:\path\to\project\node_modules\clean-webpack-plugin\node_modules\rimraf\rimraf.js:303:9)
    at C:\path\to\project\node_modules\clean-webpack-plugin\index.js:164:16
    at Array.forEach (native)
    at CleanWebpackPlugin.clean (C:\path\to\project\node_modules\clean-webpack-plugin\index.js:90:15)
    at CleanWebpackPlugin.apply (C:\path\to\project\node_modules\clean-webpack-plugin\index.js:191:20)
    at Compiler.apply (C:\path\to\project\node_modules\tapable\lib\Tapable.js:306:16)
    at webpack (C:\path\to\project\node_modules\webpack\lib\webpack.js:32:19)
    at startDevServer (C:\path\to\project\node_modules\webpack-dev-server\bin\webpack-dev-server.js:339:14)
    at C:\path\to\project\node_modules\webpack-dev-server\bin\webpack-dev-server.js:330:3
    at C:\path\to\project\node_modules\portfinder\lib\portfinder.js:160:14
    at C:\path\to\project\node_modules\portfinder\node_modules\async\lib\async.js:52:16
    at C:\path\to\project\node_modules\portfinder\node_modules\async\lib\async.js:269:32
    at C:\path\to\project\node_modules\portfinder\node_modules\async\lib\async.js:44:16
    at C:\path\to\project\node_modules\portfinder\lib\portfinder.js:122:16
error Command failed with exit code 1.

OS: Windows 10 clean-webpack-plugin version: 0.1.16 rimraf version: 2.5.4

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 7 years ago
Reactions: 37
Comments: 33 (1 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

A quick search for the error seems to indicate that “it was due to the fact I had an explorer window opened in the directory I was trying to delete”. Could this be the case here as well?

+36

johnagan on Aug 11, 2017

One reason could be, if you have live server extension installed ???

When I disable it, the error goes away…

+34

Legends on Aug 6, 2018

npm install

fixed my issue

+13

shobhit-v on Feb 11, 2019

Hi! I find this error occurs when nodemon is on.

OS: Windows10 15063’s WSL (Ubuntu 16.04)

+12

wcxaaa on Oct 11, 2017

One reason could be, if you have live server extension installed ???

When I disable it, the error goes away…

you saved my day.

mkalantar on Jul 26, 2019

I’m hitting this issue as well, but only intermittently. It seems to empty the specified folder(s) and then throws the error. Then on running the build again it removes the now-empty directory successfully.

rebolyte on Jun 23, 2017

@chrisblossom Yes I have.

chatroom-node@0.1.0 /mnt/m/workbench/_WSL/chatroom-node └── clean-webpack-plugin@0.1.17

When I start building server code while nodemon is on, it throws an error.

Error: ENOTEMPTY: directory not empty, rmdir ‘/mnt/m/workbench/_WSL/chatroom-node/dist/server/config’ …

Here is the full error log.

However, the error goes away when I shut nodemon down and build again.

wcxaaa on Oct 13, 2017

Closed in v2.0.0 via #99. See johnagan/clean-webpack-plugin#usage. Please open a new issue if you continue to have problems.

chrisblossom on Mar 4, 2019

No argument here. It wasn’t purposeful–I ran foreman under sudo and webpack was one of the commands in the Procfile. It wasn’t intentional.

dlo on Mar 10, 2018

@dlo I would highly suggest NOT running webpack with sudo. If you are experiencing permission issues without sudo you have other issues that should be solved. Again, running webpack as sudo is dangerous and should be avoided.

chrisblossom on Mar 10, 2018

In case it’s helpful for anyone else, it turns out I’d run webpack under sudo, so files created in dist had root permissions and my usual user didn’t have the rights to delete them. This is why running webpack would throw this error (at least for me).

dlo on Mar 10, 2018