grunt throw "Recursive process.nextTick detected"

Question

I'm running Lion 10.9.2 with nodejs v0.10.26

I want to setup an automated compilation on sass files and a live reload with grunt, nothing complicated but...

When running grunt watch I get the following error

(node) warning: Recursive process.nextTick detected. This will break in the next version of node. Please use setImmediate for recursive deferral.

util.js:35
  var str = String(f).replace(formatRegExp, function(x) {
                      ^
RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded

here is the Gruntfile.js

module.exports = function(grunt) {

    // Project configuration.
    grunt.initConfig({
        pkg: grunt.file.readJSON('package.json'),

        sass: {
            dist: {
                files: {
                    'assets/css/styles.css': 'assets/sass/styles.scss'
                }
            }
        },
        watch: {
            all: {
                files: 'index.html', // Change this if you are not watching index.html
                options: {
                    livereload: true  // Set livereload to trigger a reload upon change
                }
            },
            css: {
                files:  [ 'assets/sass/**/*.scss' ],
                tasks:  [ 'sass' ],
                options: {
                    spawn: false
                }
            },
            options: {
                livereload: true // Set livereload to trigger a reload upon change
            }
        }

    });

    grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-watch');
    grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-contrib-sass');

    grunt.registerTask('watch', [ 'watch']);

    grunt.registerTask('default', [ 'sass', 'watch' ]);

};

and here is the package.json

{
  "name": "application",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "private": true,
  "devDependencies": {
    "grunt": "~0.4.2",
    "grunt-contrib-watch": "~0.5.3",
    "grunt-contrib-sass": "~0.7.3"
  }
}

Auston

Answer 1

I finally figured out a similar problem I was having with SASS. I was using

grunt.registerTask('sass', [ 'sass']);

The trick was that Grunt doesn't seem to like the repetition in names. When I switch to

grunt.registerTask('styles', [ 'sass']);

Everything worked as it should.

Scallop

awesome, thanks for spotting this. I realised we don't need to register a single task anyway, because grunt will run 'grunt sass' when you type that into the command line. – Befoul

Thank you for answering this... I've been bashing my head on the desk for the last hour and a half figuring out why the grunt-bower-concat plugin was giving me that output. – Mestas

Oddly worked for me fine with sass, but broke on watch, thanks – Lounging

Answer 2

Just had this problem. Resolved it by removing grunt.registerTask('watch', [ 'watch']);

Phare

Answer 3

I just fixed a similar error "Recursive process.nextTick detected" causing by command: grunt server

The solution? Use sudo grunt serve instead

Footpoundsecond

this should never be the solution. sudo shouldn't be used unless its something that is actually changing your system. It sounds like you did sudo npm install which is often bad – Cassiodorus

Answer 4

you could try this one, it fixed the issue for me, working with Yeoman 1.3.3 and Ubuntu 14.04 Grunt watch error - Waiting...Fatal error: watch ENOSPC

Jellied

Answer 5

I was getting error in even trying to install grunt. Running npm dedupe solved my problem as answered here: Grunt watch error - Waiting...Fatal error: watch ENOSPC

Morie

Answer 6

Alternative solution: check your watch for an empty file argument.

Here's an excerpt of my gruntfile

watch: {
  all: {
    options:{
      livereload: true
    },
    files: ['src/scss/*.scss', 'src/foo.html',, 'src/bar.html'],
    tasks: ['default']
  }
}

In my case, I could recreate the original poster's error on demand with the empty argument above.

Danit