React-Native Install Error with Babel ES2015

Question

I am trying to start a new react-native project following the Getting Started example in the projects docs. Below is the install and error I get. NODE is 5.2, NPM is 3.3.12. Mac is El Capitain.

I get an error: Error: Couldn't find preset "es2015" relative to directory referencing ES2015 relative to directory.

I then follow the advice here and have both presets installed globally and locally in the project. You can see it in the npm ls -g command below that its installed globally. After installing it locally in the project, i get a peer deependency warning for react: UNMET PEER DEPENDENCY react@15.0.2

I then installed react@15.0.2. I then re-run react-native run-ios and I get the same error:

Alains-MacBook-Pro:AwesomeProject klik$ react-native run-ios
/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:413
          throw new Error( /*istanbul ignore next*/"Couldn't find preset " + /*istanbul ignore next*/(0, _stringify2.default)(val) + " relative to directory " + /*istanbul ignore next*/(0, _stringify2.default)(dirname));
          ^

Error: Couldn't find preset "es2015" relative to directory "/Users/klik"
    at /Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:413:17
    at Array.map (native)

I then run npm install on the project and get the same error again.

Alains-MacBook-Pro:AwesomeProject klik$ npm -v
3.3.12
Alains-MacBook-Pro:AwesomeProject klik$ npm install
Alains-MacBook-Pro:AwesomeProject klik$ react-native run-ios
/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:413
          throw new Error( /*istanbul ignore next*/"Couldn't find preset " + /*istanbul ignore next*/(0, _stringify2.default)(val) + " relative to directory " + /*istanbul ignore next*/(0, _stringify2.default)(dirname));
          ^

Error: Couldn't find preset "es2015" relative to directory "/Users/klik"
    at /Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:413:17
    at Array.map (native)
    at OptionManager.resolvePresets (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:405:20)
    at OptionManager.mergePresets (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:388:10)
    at OptionManager.mergeOptions (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:347:14)
    at OptionManager.addConfig (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:248:10)
    at OptionManager.findConfigs (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:454:16)
    at OptionManager.init (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:502:12)
    at compile (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-register/lib/node.js:112:69)
    at loader (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-register/lib/node.js:158:14)

I then add a .babelrc file with the following JSON. This has worked on other projects for me after reading it on Babeljs.io and I saw it suggested here again so I tried it. It didnt work but produced this different error referencing the promise directory. This looks like it waiting for a promise to return with the ios file in the project, which doesnt exist because React-Native never completed the install. All I have for files in the project after running npm install are node_modules directory and package.json and the .babelrc file I added:

Alains-MacBook-Pro:AwesomeProject klik$ npm install
Alains-MacBook-Pro:AwesomeProject klik$ react-native run-ios
/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/promise/lib/done.js:10
      throw err;
      ^

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, uv_chdir
    at Error (native)
    at process.chdir (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/graceful-fs/polyfills.js:18:9)
    at _runIOS (runIOS.js:51:11)
    at runIOS.js:24:5
    at tryCallTwo (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/promise/lib/core.js:45:5)
    at doResolve (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/promise/lib/core.js:200:13)
    at new Promise (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/promise/lib/core.js:66:3)
    at Array.runIOS (runIOS.js:23:10)
    at Object.run (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/react-native/local-cli/cli.js:87:13)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/klik/.nvm/versions/node/v5.2.0/lib/node_modules/react-native-cli/index.js:88:7)

This is the original install with error:

Alains-MacBook-Pro:~ klik$ npm ls -g --depth=0
/Users/klik/.nvm/versions/node/v5.2.0/lib
├── babel-cli@6.8.0
├── babel-preset-es2015@6.6.0
├── babel-preset-react@6.5.0
├── cf-package@1.0.2
├── eslint@2.10.2
├── express@4.13.4
├── firebase-tools@3.0.0
├── gulp-cli@1.2.1
├── jshint@2.9.2
├── node-pre-gyp@0.6.28
├── nodemon@1.9.2
├── npm@3.3.12
├── react-native-cli@0.2.0
├── reindex-cli@0.4.1
├── rnpm@1.7.0
├── webpack@1.13.0
└── webpack-dev-server@1.14.1

Alains-MacBook-Pro:~ klik$ which node
**/Users/klik/.nvm/versions/node/v5.2.0/bin/node**
Alains-MacBook-Pro:~ klik$ which npm
**/Users/klik/.nvm/versions/node/v5.2.0/bin/npm**
Alains-MacBook-Pro:~ klik$ watchman -v
4.5.0
Alains-MacBook-Pro:~ klik$ cd projects
Alains-MacBook-Pro:projects klik$ react-native init AwesomeProject
This will walk you through creating a new React Native project in /Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject
Installing react-native package from npm...
/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:413
          throw new Error( /*istanbul ignore next*/"Couldn't find preset " + /*istanbul ignore next*/(0, _stringify2.default)(val) + " relative to directory " + /*istanbul ignore next*/(0, _stringify2.default)(dirname));
          ^

Error: Couldn't find preset "es2015" relative to directory "/Users/klik"
    at /Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:413:17
    at Array.map (native)
    at OptionManager.resolvePresets (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:405:20)
    at OptionManager.mergePresets (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:388:10)
    at OptionManager.mergeOptions (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:347:14)
    at OptionManager.addConfig (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:248:10)
    at OptionManager.findConfigs (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:454:16)
    at OptionManager.init (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:502:12)
    at compile (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-register/lib/node.js:112:69)
    at loader (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-register/lib/node.js:158:14)
Alains-MacBook-Pro:projects klik$ 

Any ideas come to mind? Thank you in advance for your help.

Answer 1

tl;dr. npm i babel-preset-react-native --save-dev $ echo '{"presets": ["react-native"]}' > .babelrc

So the problem as noted in the first error starts in the babel options manager: at OptionManager.init (/Users/klik/projects/AwesomeProject/node_modules/babel-core/lib/transformation/file/options/option-manager.js:502:12)

While trying to figure out how to get any react-native project running, I came across Este's DevStack for react-native. When I installed, it worked as advertised. I went to the code to see why this worked and not one single other worked. Este has a .babelrc file. This is it: Este .babelrc { "presets": ["react-native"], "env": { "production": { "plugins": [ "transform-react-constant-elements", "transform-react-inline-elements" ] } } }

I added the "env" setting to the .babelrc i created earlier. This is the current .babelrc file.

{
  "retainLines": true,
  "compact": true,
  "comments": false,
  "plugins": [],
  "presets": ["react", "react-native"],
  "env": {  
      "plugins": [
        "transform-react-constant-elements",
        "transform-react-inline-elements"
      ]   
  },
  "sourceMaps": false,
}

I added this options configuration into each previous project including the one that is the subject of the question and everyone of them worked. This includes the Firebase, example. They all worked. Apparently, Babel 6 no longer does transforms by default and you have to enable it. I checked the React-Native Babel Preset on github and it handles transforms. So this is the new .babelrc file and it works.

{"presets": ["react-native"]}

Turns out @jaxoncreed has the right solution in his question here. The answer there suggests there is a default fallback .babelrc file that will be used if you put one in. In the copy of the the tutorial project downloaded a few days ago, that file doesn't exist. So the short answer is I need to add the .babelrc file in the project.

npm i babel-preset-react-native --save-dev

$ echo '{"presets": ["react-native"]}' > .babelrc