How do I resolve this NPM / Yeoman error log for an Office Add-in (Outlook)?

Question

I am following Microsoft Office Add-in Project Generator - YO OFFICE!.

When I try to npm start, it crashed, and I show the command line output below.

Points to note:

• the Yeoman yo office command reported no errors and ended with "Congratulations! Your add-in has been created!"

• the most obvious place for a problem in craeting and running this simple template is porbably "Adding Self-Signed Certificates as Trusted Root Certificate", but that went problem free

So, here's the command line output:

F:\DropBox\programs\xampp\htdocs\zaq\zaq>npm start

> zaq@0.1.0 start F:\DropBox\programs\xampp\htdocs\zaq\zaq
> webpack-dev-server --mode development --https --key ./certs/server.key --cert ./certs/server.crt --cacert ./certs/ca.crt --port 3000

F:\DropBox\programs\xampp\htdocs\zaq\zaq\node_modules\webpack-cli\bin\config-yargs.js:89
                                describe: optionsSchema.definitions.output.properties.path.description,
                                                                           ^

TypeError: Cannot read property 'properties' of undefined
    at module.exports (F:\DropBox\programs\xampp\htdocs\zaq\zaq\node_modules\webpack-cli\bin\config-yargs.js:89:48)
    at Object.<anonymous> (F:\DropBox\programs\xampp\htdocs\zaq\zaq\node_modules\webpack-dev-server\bin\webpack-dev-server.js:84:40)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:688:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:699:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:598:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:537:12)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:529:3)
    at Function.Module.runMain (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:741:12)
    at startup (internal/bootstrap/node.js:285:19)
    at bootstrapNodeJSCore (internal/bootstrap/node.js:739:3)
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! zaq@0.1.0 start: `webpack-dev-server --mode development --https --key ./certs/server.key --cert ./certs/server.crt --cacert ./certs/ca.crt --port 3000`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the zaq@0.1.0 start script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_logs\2018-10-16T18_48_40_772Z-debug.log

F:\DropBox\programs\xampp\htdocs\zaq\zaq>

Note that the "complete log of this run" isn't very interesting. I can post it if asked, but 1) it's just a lot more to make this question "noisy" and 2) it's hardly "complete", as it doesn't even mention the error.

As to the error reported:

F:\DropBox\programs\xampp\htdocs\zaq\zaq\node_modules\webpack-cli\bin\config-yargs.js:89
                                describe: optionsSchema.definitions.output.properties.path.description,
                                                                           ^

Here's the relevant part of the file, starting at line 87 :

        "output-path": {
            type: "string",
            describe: optionsSchema.definitions.output.properties.path.description,
            group: OUTPUT_GROUP,
            defaultDescription: "The current directory",
            requiresArg: true
        },

I could post the whole file, but it was genearted and I have not editted it.

All that I have done is

1. install NPM
2. yo office
3. Adding Self-Signed Certificates as Trusted Root Certificate
4. npm start

Any idea how to correct this & get the "out of the box demo" running?

Answer 1

I tried 'npm i webpack@4.18.0' or 'npm i webpack-cli@latest'

Both have worked for me.

For context re. https://github.com/webpack/webpack/issues/8082