Error: No default engine was specified and no extension was provided

express, http, node.js

Solution

The res.render stuff will throw an error if you're not using a view engine.

If you just want to serve json replace the `res.render('error', { error: err });` lines in your code with:

res.json({ error: err })

PS: People usually also have message in the returned object:

res.status(err.status || 500);
res.json({
  message: err.message,
  error: err
});

Problem

I am working through setting up a http server using node.js and engine. However, I keep running into issues that I have little information on how to resolve I would appreciate some help solving this please. ``` Error: No default engine was specified and no extension was provided. at new View (...\node_modules\express\lib\view.js:41:42) at Function.app.render (...\node_modules\express\lib\application.js:484:12) at ServerResponse.res.render (...\node_modules\express\lib\response.js:783:7) at Layer.handle (...\app.js:123:7) at trim_prefix (...\node_modules\express\lib\router\index.js:225:17) at c (...\node_modules\express\lib\router\index.js:198:9) at Function.proto.process_params (...\node_modules\express\lib\router\index.js:253:12) at next (...\node_modules\express\lib\router\index.js:189:19) at next (...\node_modules\express\lib\router\index.js:202:7) at next (...\node_modules\express\lib\router\index.js:166:38) ``` Below is what I have set up to start up this engine. ``` var http = require('http'); var module = require("module") var logger = require('morgan'); var express = require('express'); var app = module.exports = express(); var silent = 'test' == process.env.NODE_ENV; var httpServer = http.createServer(app); // app middleware app.enable('strict routing'); // app.all('*', function(req, res, next)/*** CORS support.*/ // { // if (!req.get('Origin')) return next();// use "*" here to accept any origin // res.set('Access-Control-Allow-Origin', 'http://localhost:3000'); // res.set('Access-Control-Allow-Methods', 'GET, POST'); // res.set('Access-Control-Allow-Headers', 'X-Requested-With, Content-Type'); // res.set('Access-Control-Allow-Max-Age', 3600); // if ('OPTIONS' == req.method) return res.send(200); // next(); // }); app.set('views', __dirname + '/views'); // general config app.set('view engine', 'html'); app.get('/404', function(req, res, next){ next();// trigger a 404 since no other middleware will match /404 after this one, and we're not responding here }); app.get('/403', function(req, res, next){// trigger a 403 error var err = new Error('not allowed!'); err.status = 403; next(err); }); app.get('/500', function(req, res, next){// trigger a generic (500) error next(new Error('keyboard cat!')); }); app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public')); //error handlers app.use(logErrors); app.use(clientErrorHandler); app.use(errorHandler); // middleware with an arity of 4 are considered error handling middleware. When you next(err) // it will be passed through the defined middleware in order, but ONLY those with an arity of 4, ignoring regular middleware. function clientErrorHandler(err, req, res, next) { if (req.xhr) {// whatever you want here, feel free to populate properties on `err` to treat it differently in here. res.send(err.status || 500, { error: err.message }); } else { next(err);} }; // create an error with .status. we can then use the property in our custom error handler (Connect repects this prop as well) function error (status, msg) { var err = new Error(msg); err.status = status; return err; }; function logErrors (err, req, res, next) { console.error(err.stack); next(err); }; function errorHandler (err, req, res, next) { res.status(500); res.render('error', { error: err }); }; // Error handlers // Since this is the last non-error-handling middleware use()d, we assume 404, as nothing else responded. // $ curl http://localhost:3000/notfound // $ curl http://localhost:3000/notfound -H "Accept: application/json" // $ curl http://localhost:3000/notfound -H "Accept: text/plain" app.use(function(req, res, next){ res.status(404); if (req.accepts('html')) {// respond with html page res.render('404', { url: req.url }); return; } if (req.accepts('json')) {// respond with json res.send({ error: 'Not found' }); return; } res.type('txt').send('Not found');// default to plain-text. send() }); // error-handling middleware, take the same form as regular middleware, however they require an // arity of 4, aka the signature (err, req, res, next).when connect has an error, it will invoke ONLY error-handling middleware. // If we were to next() here any remaining non-error-handling middleware would then be executed, or if we next(err) to // continue passing the error, only error-handling middleware would remain being executed, however here // we simply respond with an error page. app.use(function(err, req, res, next){ // we may use properties of the error object here and next(err) appropriately, or if we possibly recovered from the error, simply next(). res.status(err.status || 500); res.render('500', { error: err }); }); if (!module.parent) {// assigning to exports will not modify module, must use module.exports app.listen(3000); silent || console.log('Express started on port 3000'); }; ```

Original source