Build successful but Cannot GET / error

ejazr · February 15, 2024, 5:56am

I have deployed a MERN stack webiste on render, my frontend loads fine but my backend says its live but when I click the link I get the error Cannot GET /.

Link to my backend repo: GitHub - rimshaejaz/290-backend-

My build command is npm install
My star command is node travel-controller.mjs

al_ps · February 15, 2024, 10:12am

Hi,

Cannot GET / usually comes from Express when a route/path has issues. In this case, the root path, /.

From the repo you shared, the root path looks for static files in a folder that doesn’t exist: https://github.com/rimshaejaz/290-backend-/blob/main/travel-controller.mjs#L10

Maybe try hitting /travels or the other routes/paths defined in that file.

Alan

ejazr · February 15, 2024, 6:06pm

So I was able to get the travel data, but I think the way I’m trying to serve my static files is wrong. I have my static files in my mern-frontend repo. mern-frontend/public, how would I access that with express?

Would it be
app.use(express.static(‘mern-frontend/public’)); ?

github.com

rimshaejaz/290-backend-/blob/main/travel-controller.mjs

// Controllers for the Travel Collection

import 'dotenv/config';
import express from 'express';
import * as travels from './travel-model.mjs';

const PORT = process.env.PORT;
const app = express();
app.use(express.json());  // REST needs JSON MIME type.
app.use('/', express.static('../public/index.html'));
app.get('/', function (req, res) { 
    res.redirect('/travels') 
});

// CREATE controller ******************************************
app.post ('/travels', (req,res) => { 
    travels.createTravel(
        req.body.location, 
        req.body.days, 
        req.body.date,

This file has been truncated. show original

ejazr · February 15, 2024, 6:07pm

https://two90-backend.onrender.com/travels

here is what the website shows after successfully being deployed.

al_ps · February 16, 2024, 8:53am

The repo you’ve shared doesn’t appear to contain any frontend code, so you won’t be able to reference the files across services/repos.

A common MERN setup is a Static Site with the “React” part and a Web Service for the “Express” part. The Express/backend is usually just an API to which the static frontend makes client-side (from the browser) calls. Maybe you don’t need to serve your frontend static files with your backend?

Alan

ejazr · February 16, 2024, 9:02pm

I understand that, but my frontend is still not communicating with my backend.
When I go to the “Travels” tab on my frontend, I should be able to see a travel history displayed

When I go to “add travel” on that same page and try to add a travel, I get an error. This has me assume my backend isn’t communicating with my frontend.

When I deploy my backend with the code added:

app.get(‘/’, function (req, res) {
res.redirect(‘/travels’)
});

my backend link shows me the list of travel histories that should be appearing on my frontend /TravelLogPage.

Would it be more helpful if I linked both of my backend and frontend repos? I am genuinely lost on what to do, I feel like it should be a simple fix but I just am not understanding where the disconnect is happening between my frontend and backend.

backend:

frontend:

al_ps · February 19, 2024, 8:41am

Your frontend and backend are separate services on separate domains. So the frontend calling just /travels won’t reach the backend. It would need to call the full URL of the backend https://two90-backend.onrender.com/travels

Or, you could use the Redirects and Rewrites feature of Static Sites to rewrite the static /travels to https://two90-backend.onrender.com/travels

Alan

system · March 17, 2024, 9:03pm

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

Topic		Replies	Views
Build successfully but cannot Get /	2	453	July 3, 2023
Node.js Backened Deploying Error(Cannot GET /)	2	1851	February 16, 2023
Deployed Successfully but showing cannot GET/	5	2751	November 11, 2023
Getting error of "cannot get" after deploying successfully	2	282	January 16, 2024
I got Cannot GET / for backend deployment	2	922	February 22, 2023

Build successful but Cannot GET / error

Related topics