Parcel watch doesn't detect changes, but safe-write is off

Question

Symptoms:

• Starting parcel watch completes the initial build, the command continues running but doesn't detect any further changes

Context:

• Parcel is being run from an IntelliJ IDEA platform IDE (Rider)
• Safe-write functionality is disabled, so I am completely sure that the file is actually being changed on disk
  • Problem is reproducible when I edit referenced CSS or JS using a different editor (vim)
• OS is Ubuntu Linux

Why aren't subsequent changes to files detected by Parcel, triggering a re-build?

Answer 1

IntelliJ-based IDEs have a habit of completely burning through the inotify limit. In my case, setting fs.inotify.max_user_watches in /etc/sysctl.conf to a higher value (524288 in my case, in accordance with the instructions given by JetBrains) and then running sudo sysctl -p --system before restarting parcel watch solved the problem conclusively.