No way to step into node_modules anymore?

Question

Is it just me, or Chromium DevTools stopped to stop at breakpoints in node_modules (including /usr/lib/node_modules)?

a.js:

console.log('a.js');
require('./b');

b.js:

debugger
console.log('b.js');
require('userhome');

$ npm i userhome@1.0.0
// add the following lines to node_modules/userhome/index.js:
// debugger
// console.log('userhome');
$ node --inspect-brk a.js

Open about:inspect in Chromium. Choose the process under Remote Target. Press F8. It stops at b.js. Press F8 again. It doesn't stop at node_modules/userhome/index.js and finishes.

Am I missing something? Is there a way to debug this issue somehow (a way to figure out why it doesn't stop at node_modules breakpoints)?

I'm running Chromium 121.0.6167.184 and nodejs v21.6.1.

UPD I just checked on another machine with Chromium 115.0.5790.102 and v20.4.0, and here it works. It had the Node.js V8 --inspector Manager (NiM) extension installed, but I turned it off before testing.

It looks as if node_modules is considered "uninteresting" in the recent versions of Chromium (and likely Chrome), and as such skipped. I'd like to disable it somehow.

Answer 1

The workaround I've found is... to not use Chromium DevTools. You can debug code with vscode:

• Launch it
• Ctrl-Shift-P
• Choose Debug: Attach to Node Process
• Choose the node --inspect process

The trick is, you can't debug processes running under root, as might be the case with processes running in docker containers.

UPD With the help of the lscr.io/linuxserver/chromium image I was able to figure out that it stopped working in Chromium around 120:

// 119.0.6045.159 +
$ docker run --rm --network=host \
  lscr.io/linuxserver/chromium:5098d7ca-ls46

// 120.0.6099.129 -
$ docker run --rm --network=host \
  lscr.io/linuxserver/chromium:4fed82c2-ls47

And I soon was able to find in What's new that they added node_modules to the ignore list.