Error received: "unable to resolve root". How to grant access to watchman?

Question

I installed a react-native starter project and when running, it asked to grant permission to watchman to access my system's files. I naively declined, but now I get the following error whenever trying to run the folder:

Error: unable to resolve root /Users/ckoong/Desktop/Repos/rn-starter: failed to opendir(/Users/ckoong/Desktop/Repos/rn-starter): Operation not permitted
    at BunserBuf.<anonymous> (/Users/ckoong/Desktop/Repos/rn-starter/node_modules/fb-watchman/index.js:95:23)
    at BunserBuf.emit (events.js:315:20)
    at BunserBuf.process (/Users/ckoong/Desktop/Repos/rn-starter/node_modules/bser/index.js:292:10)
    at /Users/ckoong/Desktop/Repos/rn-starter/node_modules/bser/index.js:247:12
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:75:11)
Emitted 'error' event on WatchmanWatcher instance at:
    at Client.<anonymous> (/Users/ckoong/Desktop/Repos/rn-starter/node_modules/jest-haste-map/build/lib/WatchmanWatcher.js:130:10)
    at Client.emit (events.js:315:20)
    at BunserBuf.<anonymous> (/Users/ckoong/Desktop/Repos/rn-starter/node_modules/fb-watchman/index.js:107:12)
    at BunserBuf.emit (events.js:315:20)
    at /Users/ckoong/Desktop/Repos/rn-starter/node_modules/bser/index.js:249:12
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:75:11) {
  watchmanResponse: {
    version: '4.7.0',
    error: 'unable to resolve root /Users/ckoong/Desktop/Repos/rn-starter: failed to opendir(/Users/ckoong/Desktop/Repos/rn-starter): Operation not permitted'

I've seen various people saying to grant access to watchman in system preferences, however, when searching in the window, I'm not seeing any reference to watchman anywhere on my system.

I'm working on Big Sur.

Please assist.

I personally did not encounter this issue, but I read about it here and maybe it is useful (long story short: remove watchman and install it again) https://github.com/facebook/react-native/issues/2941#issuecomment-142710132 — dianaqqq, Feb 17 '22 at 09:19
in a shell try to grant 777 permissions with this command "sudo chmod 777 -R /Users/ckoong/Desktop/Repos/rn-starter" (777 no es the best option but could help you...) — clay, Feb 21 '22 at 18:32

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered May 24 '22 at 10:32

3

adding a .watchmanconfig file in the root and putting a {} inside it has worked for me

answered May 24 '22 at 10:32

Gourav Sanyal

125
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14

This worked for me. Thank you so much – Yasir Arefin Tusher Jun 09 '23 at 05:31

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 23 '22 at 03:55

As with @Fraser's answer You must grant Full Disk Access to watchman. Go to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy tab -> scroll down and click Full Disk Access Check off

Terminal
sh or Watchman (Mine showed only sh)

Then run watchman watch <dir> and start the app

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 22 '22 at 14:30

2

Go to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy tab -> scroll down and click Full Disk Access, and then check Watchman.

answered Feb 22 '22 at 14:30

Fraser

15,275
8
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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 09 '22 at 11:14

2

I had the project in the ~/Documents folder. I moved it elsewhere and it worked. I think the same issue applies to ~/Desktop folder. source

answered Jun 09 '22 at 11:14

Luís Soares

5,726
4
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Error received: "unable to resolve root". How to grant access to watchman?

4 Answers4