Problems with Debugging and Sourcemaps in Web Browsers
Hope this clarifies the technicals behind the problem...knowing how things works helps some :)
This browser error means it has some compiled version of your JavaScript in a sourcemap intermediate file it or some 3rd party created that is now needed when debugging that same script in "devtools" in your web browser.
This can happen if your script fails (or in your case trying to get an image source hidden in the sourcemap code that created the script) but whose script error is tied to some JavaScript that got created from an original sourcemap file that now cannot be found to debug that same error. So it's an error about an error, a missing debugging file creating a new error. (crazy, huh?)
This error is likely coming from an extension in the web browser and is reporting it has generated a script error it has recorded in the console.log window of devtools (press F12 in the browser). The error is likely from the extension (not your code) saying it has some code that contains an address to a sourcemap file it cannot access, has a bad URI/URL address, is blocked, or that is missing.
The browser only needs this sourcemap file if a developer using devtools will need to debug the original script again.
A sourcemap
, by the way, is a file that translates or transpiles code from one language to another language. Often this is a file that the browser uses to translate this source code into a child script like JavaScript/ECMAScript, or when it needs to do the opposite and recreate the source file from the child script. In most cases this file is not needed at all as a 3rd party software program has already compiled or transpiled the source code into the child script for the browser. For example, developers who like TypeScript use it to create JavaScript. This source code gets transpiled into JavaScript so the browser script engine can run it. The URI/URL to this sourcemap
file is usually at the top of the javaScript or application compiled code file in a format like //#...
.
When this intermediary transpile file is missing or blocked for security reasons in a web browser, the application will usually not care unless it needs the source file for debugging the child script using this source file. In that case it will complain when it feels it needs this file and cannot find it, as it uses it to recreate the source file for the code running in the browser when debugging the script in order to allow a developer to debug the original source code. When it cannot find it, it means that any developer trying to debug it will not be able to do so, and is stuck with the compiled code only. So it is safe to turn off these errors in the various ways mentioned in this post. It should not affect your own scripts if it is connected to an extension. Even if it is related to your own scripts, it is still unlikely you need it unless you plan to run debugging from devtools.