"You may need an appropriate loader to handle this file type" with Webpack and Babel

Question

I am trying to use Webpack with Babel to compile ES6 assets, but I am getting the following error message:

You may need an appropriate loader to handle this file type.
| import React from 'react';
| /*
| import { render } from 'react-dom'

Here is what my Webpack config looks like:

var path = require('path');
var webpack = require('webpack');

module.exports = {
  entry: './index',
  output: {
    path: path.join(__dirname, 'dist'),
    filename: 'bundle.js',
    publicPath: '/dist/'
  },
  module: {
    loaders: [
      {
        test: /\.jsx?$/,
        loader: 'babel-loader',
        exclude: /node_modules/
      }
    ]
  }
}

Here is the middleware step that makes use of Webpack:

var webpack = require('webpack');
var webpackDevMiddleware = require('webpack-dev-middleware');
var config = require('./webpack.config');

var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var port = 3000;

var compiler = webpack(config);
app.use(webpackDevMiddleware(compiler, {
  noInfo: true,
  publicPath: config.output.publicPath
}));

app.get('/', function(req, res) {
  res.sendFile(__dirname + '/index.html');
});

app.listen(port, function(err) {
  console.log('Server started on http://localhost:%s', port);
});

All my index.js file is doing is importing react, but it seems like the 'babel-loader' is not working.

I am using 'babel-loader' 6.0.0.

I'm having the same problem. babel-preset-es2015 is installed and yet it still has issues with using JSX in a ReactDOM.render() call :s — SomethingOn, Dec 13 '15 at 17:02
What is the extensions of your file? Are they js files or jsx files? Your loader only considers files with jsx extensions, that could be the problem — cubbuk, Mar 18 '16 at 13:03
At this link your problem will be 100% solved [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50149729/next-js-import-css-file-does-not-work/57543284#57543284][1] — Mehrdad Masoumi, Aug 18 '19 at 09:43
At this link your problem will be 100% solved [css import to next.js](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50149729/next-js-import-css-file-does-not-work/57543284#57543284) — Mehrdad Masoumi, Aug 18 '19 at 09:45

score 108 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 02 '15 at 03:58

108

You need to install the es2015 preset:

npm install babel-preset-es2015

and then configure babel-loader:

{
    test: /\.jsx?$/,
    loader: 'babel-loader',
    exclude: /node_modules/,
    query: {
        presets: ['es2015']
    }
}

answered Nov 02 '15 at 03:58

loganfsmyth

156,129
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67

I have presets installed and babel-loader installed too. It is still giving the same error – Umang Gupta Feb 24 '16 at 10:34
@UG_ You'll have to ask a separate question. We'd need to see your whole config and the full error message. – loganfsmyth Feb 25 '16 at 01:24
2

@UG_ did you find the solution? – Sarasranglt Aug 08 '17 at 10:02
2

Where is the file "babel-loader" file that we should configure? – nix86 May 12 '21 at 11:37
@nix86 `babel-loader` is an npm module, not a file you edit. – loganfsmyth May 12 '21 at 15:59

score 43 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 24 '16 at 11:36

Make sure you have the es2015 babel preset installed.

An example package.json devDependencies is:

"devDependencies": {
  "babel-core": "^6.0.20",
  "babel-loader": "^6.0.1",
  "babel-preset-es2015": "^6.0.15",
  "babel-preset-react": "^6.0.15",
  "babel-preset-stage-0": "^6.0.15",
  "webpack": "^1.9.6",
  "webpack-dev-middleware": "^1.2.0",
  "webpack-hot-middleware": "^2.0.0"
},

Now configure babel-loader in your webpack config:

{ test: /\.js$/, loader: 'babel-loader', exclude: /node_modules/ }

add a .babelrc file to the root of your project where the node modules are:

{
  "presets": ["es2015", "stage-0", "react"]
}

More info:

. babelrc file is what I was missing, thanks! This is the complete tutorial, the accepted answer only gets you so far. — Mike, Apr 05 '16 at 20:25
Side-info: Not so sure about "stage-0" in options (can also be configured in .babelrc): Some features may not make it in official ES-Standards, so I usually use the more safe "stage-3". — Christof Kälin, Feb 22 '17 at 13:58

score 17 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 08 '17 at 16:57

If you are using Webpack > 3 then you only need to install babel-preset-env, since this preset accounts for es2015, es2016 and es2017.

var path = require('path');
let webpack = require("webpack");

module.exports = {
    entry: {
        app: './app/App.js',
        vendor: ["react","react-dom"]
    },
    output: {
        filename: 'bundle.js',
        path: path.resolve(__dirname, '../public')
    },
    module: {
        rules: [{
            test: /\.jsx?$/,
            exclude: /node_modules/,
            use: {
                loader: 'babel-loader?cacheDirectory=true',
            }
        }]
    }
};

This picks up its configuration from my .babelrc file:

{
    "presets": [
        [
            "env",
            {
                "targets": {
                    "browsers":["last 2 versions"],
                    "node":"current"
                }
            }
        ],["react"]
    ]
}

score 14 · Answer 4 · answered May 01 '20 at 02:48

BABEL TEAM UPDATE:

We're super excited that you're trying to use ES2015 syntax, but instead of continuing yearly presets, the team recommends using babel-preset-env. By default, it has the same behavior as previous presets to compile ES2015+ to ES5

If you are using Babel version 7 you will need to run npm install @babel/preset-env and have "presets": ["@babel/preset-env"] in your .babelrc configuration.

This will compile all latest features to es5 transpiled code:

Prerequisites:

Webpack 4+
Babel 7+

Step-1:: npm install --save-dev @babel/preset-env

Step-2: In order to compile JSX code to es5 babel provides @babel/preset-react package to convert reactjsx extension file to native browser understandable code.

Step-3: npm install --save-dev @babel/preset-react

Step-4: create .babelrc file inside root path path of your project where webpack.config.js exists.

{
  "presets": ["@babel/preset-env", "@babel/preset-react"]
}

Step-5: webpack.config.js

const path = require('path');
const HtmlWebpackPlugin = require('html-webpack-plugin');

module.exports = {
    mode: 'development',
    entry: path.resolve(__dirname, 'src/index.js'),
    output: {
        path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'output'),
        filename: 'bundle.js'
    },
    resolve: {
        extensions: ['.js', '.jsx']
    },
    module: {
        rules: [{
                test: /\.(js|jsx)$/,
                exclude: /node_modules/,
                use: {
                    loader: 'babel-loader'
                }
            },
            {
                test: /\.css$/i,
                use: ['style-loader', 'css-loader'],
            }
        ]
    },
    plugins: [
        new HtmlWebpackPlugin({
            template: "./public/index.html",
            filename: "./index.html"
         })
    ]
}

I'm also super excited that you give devs more headaches with all your changes. — AlexioVay, Jan 31 '21 at 15:44

score 10 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 13 '20 at 09:18

10

In my case, I had such error since import path was wrong:

Wrong: import Select from "react-select/src/Select"; // it was auto-generated by IDE ;)

Correct: import Select from "react-select";

answered Oct 13 '20 at 09:18

Pavlo Oliinyk

380
4
10

score 5 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 17 '22 at 02:32

5

This makes me feel stupid, but I want to share for anyone that got frustrated like me: I used webpack.dev.js but didn't specify that as the config file! When running Webpack run with:

webpack --config webpack.dev.js

And it suddenly worked ;)

answered Jan 17 '22 at 02:32

code

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Surprise , its fixed the issue for me also . "build": "webpack --config webpack.dev.js" , Thank you – Sonti Nagarjuna May 26 '23 at 11:38

score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 11 '19 at 08:35

Due to updates and changes overtime, version compatibility start causing issues with configuration.

Your webpack.config.js should be like this you can also configure how ever you dim fit.

var path = require('path');
var webpack = require("webpack");

module.exports = {
  entry: './src/js/app.js',
  devtool: 'source-map',
    mode: 'development',
  module: {
    rules: [{
      test: /\.js$/,
      exclude: /node_modules/,
      use: ["babel-loader"]
    },{
      test: /\.css$/,
      use: ['style-loader', 'css-loader']
    }]
  },
  output: {
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, './src/vendor'),
    filename: 'bundle.min.js'
  }
};

Another Thing to notice it's the change of args, you should read babel documentation https://babeljs.io/docs/en/presets

.babelrc

{
    "presets": ["@babel/preset-env", "@babel/preset-react"]
}

NB: you have to make sure you have the above @babel/preset-env & @babel/preset-react installed in your package.json dependencies

Adding `@babel/preset-react` fixed it for me. – kyw May 19 '19 at 10:17 — kyw, May 19 '19 at 10:17

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 01 '21 at 22:55

3

You probably forgot to add .js extension to your file.

Component -> Component.js

answered Oct 01 '21 at 22:55

Hasan Sefa Ozalp

6,353
5
34
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I can't believe this was my issue, I didn't see it after creating the document. – Helmut Granda Jan 12 '22 at 14:47

sushildlh · Answer 9 · 2023-03-09T04:47:23.977

Outdated babel packages on Jan 3, 2023

Please install these list of packages for configuration with babel.

$ npm add -D @babel/core babel-loader @babel/preset-env @babel/preset-react

and add below code .babelrc file

{
    "presets": [
        "@babel/preset-env",
        "@babel/preset-react"
    ]
}

I used @khizer webpack configuration in my application

Credit goes to This answer. As I have have been gone through the many answer of this solution and it tooks my 2-3 hours. I hope others don't waste the same amount of time.

score 1 · Answer 10 · answered Mar 22 '22 at 17:09

Just adding on another reason such error showed up in Angular.. was because I checked for html file in list of styles:

@Component({
selector: ...,
templateUrls: 'xyz.html',
stylesUrls: ['xyz.html']                  // problem 
})

Addressing wrong file type raises this error

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Aug 11 '22 at 12:34

As question doesn't specify if it was for angular, react, or react-native. I am posting this for react-native and it may be implied on others too. The reason was that it wasn't able to understand the syntax specified by loader. e.g. tsx, jsx. One solution I found in this article after lots of exploration. When we use external library that was using jsx and you configured your project with tsx, it won't understand jsx and will give you to add appropriate loader. So, you can fix that by following code in your app.json file.

"web": {
  "build": {
    "babel": {
      "include": [
        "name-of-my-shared-package-here"
      ]
    }
  }
}

By replacing name-of-my-shared-package-here with your package name that is causing the issue will solve this issue. You can check the package name in error that is causing this issue.

Legends · Answer 12 · 2018-02-14T22:42:06.763

When using Typescript:

In my case I used the newer syntax of webpack v3.11 from their documentation page I just copied the css and style loaders configuration form their website. The commented out code (newer API) causes this error, see below.

  module: {
        loaders: [{
                test: /\.ts$/,
                loaders: ['ts-loader']
            },
            {
                test: /\.css$/,
                loaders: [
                    'style-loader',
                    'css-loader'
                ]
            }
        ]
        // ,
        // rules: [{
        //     test: /\.css$/,
        //     use: [
        //         'style-loader',
        //         'css-loader'
        //     ]
        // }]
    }

The right way is to put this:

    {
        test: /\.css$/,
        loaders: [
            'style-loader',
            'css-loader'
        ]
    }

in the array of the loaders property.

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Dec 04 '18 at 02:48

This one throw me for a spin. Angular 7, Webpack I found this article so I want to give credit to the Article https://www.edc4it.com/blog/web/helloworld-angular2.html

What the solution is: //on your component file. use template as webpack will treat it as text template: require('./process.component.html')

for karma to interpret it npm install add html-loader --save-dev { test: /.html$/, use: "html-loader" },

Hope this helps somebody

score 0 · Answer 14 · edited Jun 27 '22 at 17:12

0

Just add this code webpackmix.js

mix.js('resources/js/app.js', 'public/js')
    .postCss('resources/css/app.css', 'public/css',  [
        require('tailwindcss'),
    ]).vue();

edited Jun 27 '22 at 17:12

Lee Taylor

7,761
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answered Jun 22 '22 at 18:20

nazmul nafiz

39
4

"You may need an appropriate loader to handle this file type" with Webpack and Babel

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