No binary for PhantomJS browser on your platform. Please, set "PHANTOMJS_BIN" env variable

Question

My package.json looks like this..

"karma-phantomjs-launcher": "^0.1.4",
"karma-safari-launcher": "^0.1.1",
"karma-sinon-chai": "~0.2.0",
"karma-spec-reporter": "~0.0.16",
"mocha": "~1.20.1"

my npm version is 2.2.0

whay am I getting this when I run karma test - karma start my.conf.js

The message is pretty clear: there's no PhantomJS installed on your machine. `karma-phantomjs-launcher` should download a binary of PhantomJS and install on your machine if available: because it's not you have to manually install yourself and then add its path to the environment variables using the `PHANTOMJS_BIN`. — MarcoL, Feb 05 '15 at 09:19
@MarcoCI I do have the same problem and there actually is a binary of phantomjs being installed together with the `karma-phantomjs-launcher`. — F Lekschas, Mar 23 '15 at 19:51
@Flek: then export the path of that file as shown in the answer below. — MarcoL, Mar 25 '15 at 06:30
I fixed it by removing karma-phantomjs-launcher and phantomjs and running npm install — crowne, Jul 25 '16 at 04:25

score 19 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 11 '19 at 22:42

This seems to be an issue with phantom js runner and phantom js versions.

https://github.com/karma-runner/karma-phantomjs-launcher/issues/31

How I fixed my issue..

   # install 
   npm install -g karma-phantomjs-launcher

   # temporary path.. set the path
   export PHANTOMJS_BIN=/usr/local/lib/node_modules/karma-phantomjs-launcher/node_modules/phantomjs/lib/phantom/bin/phantomjs

   karma start my.conf.js

Dan Caddigan · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-14T15:55:31.997

16

I was having this issue with an older version of node, too. If you don't want to have to hard-code this environment variable, updating your version of node will solve the problem. Just do the following (OSX instructions):

npm uninstall -g phantomjs
npm cache clean -f
brew upgrade nodejs
rm -rf node_modules
npm install -g YOUR_GLOBAL_DEPENDENCIES
npm install

Edit: updated instructions to make sure there is no global phantomjs dependency

edited Apr 14 '15 at 15:55

answered Apr 13 '15 at 15:51

Dan Caddigan

1,578
14
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These commands initially seemed to cause more problems then solutions but I eventually worked through them. `brew upgrade nodejs` didn't work out for me, I got `Error: node not installed`. But it seems that just unistalling phantomjs, cleaning npm cache, and reinstalling packages with npm cleared my `No binary for PhantomJS browser on your platform. Please, set “PHANTOMJS_BIN” env variable` error. Thank you! – Mike Mar 08 '16 at 23:48
exactly why i didnt want to embark on them. i physically downgraded node to cure another problem. no time for that tonite – blamb Aug 30 '16 at 05:58
I am able to do this for the first time, but every time I close my system and restart the app, I have to do this again. Is there a way to permanently get rid of this error? – thenakulchawla Oct 19 '16 at 00:11
I also ran into issues with npm after doing the upgrade... `npm install` would simply quit after a deprecation warning. Physically downloading the latest from [nodejs.org](https://nodejs.org/en/) fixed it for me – ironic_ollins Jan 05 '17 at 16:04

score 12 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 03 '16 at 09:58

I ran into this same problem. The fix is to manually set the PHANTOMJS_BIN variable to point to the correct phantomjs path. Somehow karma launcher tries to look at the wrong path set by PHANTOMJS_BIN.

Here is what worked for me:

$ echo $PHANTOMJS_BIN

/usr/local/lib/node_modules/karma-phantomjs-launcher/node_modules/phantomjs/lib/phantom/bin/phantomjs

$ export PHANTOMJS_BIN=/usr/local/lib/node_modules/phantomjs/lib/phantom/bin/phantomjs

$ grunt test

everything is ok after that.

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 04 '16 at 19:28

I hit this problem with karma-phantomjs-launcher@1.0.0, where I had also installed phantomjs@2.1.3.

Turns out that phantomjs is deprecated, replaced with phantomjs-prebuilt.

Uninstalling both packages and reinstalling phantomjs-prebuilt fixed the problem with karma-phantomjs-launcher:

npm -g remove phantomjs phantomjs-prebuilt
npm -g install phantomjs-prebuilt

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 22 '16 at 18:54

4

I remove all my node_modules folder under my Project and run "npm install". This did fix my problem.

answered Apr 22 '16 at 18:54

Dom

41
4

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 05 '16 at 00:24

2

My karma.conf.js had this line: process.env.PHANTOMJS_BIN = 'node_modules/karma-phantomjs-launcher/node_modules/.bin/phantomjs'; at the top. I just realized that! I commented it, and it works

answered Mar 05 '16 at 00:24

Mati Tucci

2,826
5
28
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score 2 · Answer 7 · answered May 25 '16 at 09:52

I met the same issue sometimes. I have a gruntfile.js and I had package.json where I explicitly add phantomjs-prebuilt as dependency. But my CI Server sometimes can run grunt karma smoothly while sometimes fails claiming No binary for PhantomJS browser on your platform. Please, set “PHANTOMJS_BIN” env variable.

So I add a grunt task to ensure the PHANTOMJS_BIN variable was set before the test runs, and then solved the annoying issue.

grunt.registerTask('ensurePhantomJsPath', function () {
    process.env.PHANTOMJS_BIN = './node_modules/phantomjs-prebuilt/bin/phantomjs';
    console.log(process.env.PHANTOMJS_BIN);
});

So finally the Gruntfile.js looks like this:

grunt.registerTask('ensurePhantomJsPath', function () {
    process.env.PHANTOMJS_BIN = './node_modules/phantomjs-prebuilt/bin/phantomjs';
    console.log(process.env.PHANTOMJS_BIN);
});

grunt.registerTask('test', ['ensurePhantomJsPath', 'karma']);

score 2 · Answer 8 · edited May 20 '18 at 02:01

2

I solved this problem on OSX: Remove and create file karma.config.js using sudo.

edited May 20 '18 at 02:01

Stephen Rauch

47,830
31
106
135

answered May 20 '18 at 01:43

Sandro Macedo

21
2

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Jun 10 '15 at 15:38

1

had same problem, did all above, no result just deleted 'karma-phantomjs-launcher' folder from global node_modules and project local, called 'npm install' and all is fine!

answered Jun 10 '15 at 15:38

Dmitri Algazin

3,332
27
30

score 1 · Answer 10 · edited Jun 03 '16 at 10:51

Ran into a problem like this one. What I did was install the phantomjs globally npm install -g phantomjs. Then went to the karma-phantomjs-launcher module folder and opened index.js file. Then I went to the phantomJSExePath function and commented out the prior contents(not sure if it is safe to do what I did). Then I placed

return 'C://Users/user/AppData/Roaming/npm/node_modules/phantomjs/lib/phantom/phantomjs.exe';

Saved me from retyping the temporary export.

score 1 · Answer 11 · edited Jul 18 '17 at 13:21

Run the below commands:

npm remove phantomjs -g
npm remove phantomjs
npm install phantomjs

Once you do this installation:

you will get a message like the below one:

Linking to global install at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/phantomjs-prebuilt/lib/phantom/bin/phantomjs

Copy this path and run:

export PHANTOMJS_BIN=/usr/local/lib/node_modules/phantomjs-prebuilt/lib/phantom/bin/phantomjs

Basically what is happening is: karma is trying to launch the browser but unable to find its bin. Once you export the path to the correct path, it runs.

No binary for PhantomJS browser on your platform. Please, set "PHANTOMJS_BIN" env variable

11 Answers11