Angular Universal (SSR) Error: Failed to lookup view "index" in views directory

Question

I want to deploy my angular universal app on aws.

From my understanding, I can only deploy my app on elastic beanstalk because it needs a web server to run. (It means no S3 deployment).

When I deploy my app, I have the following error:

Error: Failed to lookup view "index" in views directory "/var/app/current/dist/browser" at Function.render (/var/app/current/server.js:122227:17) at ServerResponse.render (/var/app/current/server.js:131120:7) at /var/app/current/server.js:138:9 at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/var/app/current/server.js:124007:5) at next (/var/app/current/server.js:123755:13) at Route.dispatch (/var/app/current/server.js:123730:3) at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/var/app/current/server.js:124007:5) at /var/app/current/server.js:123230:22 at param (/var/app/current/server.js:123303:14) at param (/var/app/current/server.js:123314:14)

Here what I've done so far:

1. On my angular project, create a production build with the command npm run build:ssr
2. Create an archive of my dist directory
3. On Elastic Beanstalk, create a new application with node.js and upload my archive

And my server.ts file:

import 'zone.js/dist/zone-node';
import 'reflect-metadata';
import { enableProdMode } from '@angular/core';
// Express Engine
import { ngExpressEngine } from '@nguniversal/express-engine';
// Import module map for lazy loading
import { provideModuleMap } from '@nguniversal/module-map-ngfactory-loader';

import * as express from 'express';
import { join } from 'path';

// Faster server renders w/ Prod mode (dev mode never needed)
enableProdMode();

// Express server
const app = express();

const PORT = process.env.PORT || 4000;
const DIST_FOLDER = join(process.cwd(), 'dist/browser');

// * NOTE :: leave this as require() since this file is built Dynamically from webpack
const { AppServerModuleNgFactory, LAZY_MODULE_MAP } = require('./dist/server/main');

// Our Universal express-engine (found @ https://github.com/angular/universal/tree/master/modules/express-engine)
app.engine('html', ngExpressEngine({
  bootstrap: AppServerModuleNgFactory,
  providers: [
    provideModuleMap(LAZY_MODULE_MAP)
  ]
}));

app.set('view engine', 'html');
app.set('views', DIST_FOLDER);

// Example Express Rest API endpoints
// app.get('/api/**', (req, res) => { });

// Server static files from /browser
app.get('*.*', express.static(DIST_FOLDER, {
  maxAge: '1y'
}));

// All regular routes use the Universal engine
app.get('*', (req, res) => {
  res.render('index', { req });
});

// Start up the Node server
app.listen(PORT, () => {
  console.log(`Node Express server listening on http://localhost:${PORT}`);
});

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for you help.

Answer 1

Meanwhile, I found the solution to deploy on Elastic Beanstalk.

Below the different steps I did:

1. In your Elastic Beanstalk Application, edit the Software Configuration by changing the Node command by node dist/server.js

2. Edit the port used by nodejs (2 options) :

   a. You can simply edit the port in your server.ts file by 8081 (corresponding to the nodejs port used in the nginx default configuration)

   const PORT = process.env.PORT || 8081;
   

   b. OR you can edit your nginx configuration with a configuration file .ebextensions to match the port used in your angular universal app (4000 by default)