pm2 start app.js is exiting after 15 restarts - node.js

Question

npm start will start my app just fine but when I do:
pm2 start app.js
I get:
[PM2] Spawning PM2 daemon
[PM2] PM2 Successfully daemonized
[PM2] Process app.js launched
┌──────────┬────┬──────┬──────┬────────┬─────────┬────────┬─────────────┬──────────┐
│ App name │ id │ mode │ pid │ status │ restart │ uptime │ memory │ watching │
├──────────┼────┼──────┼──────┼────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────────────┼──────────┤
│ app │ 0 │ fork │ 4681 │ online │ 0 │ 0s │ 11.508 MB │ disabled │
└──────────┴────┴──────┴──────┴────────┴─────────┴────────┴─────────────┴──────────┘
Use `pm2 show <id|name>` to get more details about an app
in the logs I get:
[PM2] Starting streaming logs for [all] process
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:37: App name:app id:0 exited with code 0
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:37: Starting execution sequence in -fork mode- for app name:app id:0
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:37: App name:app id:0 online
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:37: App name:app id:0 exited with code 0
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:37: Starting execution sequence in -fork mode- for app name:app id:0
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:37: App name:app id:0 online
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:37: App name:app id:0 exited with code 0
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:37: Starting execution sequence in -fork mode- for app name:app id:0
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:37: App name:app id:0 online
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:38: App name:app id:0 exited with code 0
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:38: Starting execution sequence in -fork mode- for app name:app id:0
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:38: App name:app id:0 online
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:38: App name:app id:0 exited with code 0
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:38: Starting execution sequence in -fork mode- for app name:app id:0
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:38: App name:app id:0 online
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:39: App name:app id:0 exited with code 0
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:39: Starting execution sequence in -fork mode- for app name:app id:0
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:39: App name:app id:0 online
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:39: App name:app id:0 exited with code 0
PM2: 2015-06-04 17:12:39: Script /home/user/app/app.js had too many unstable restarts (15). Stopped. "errored"
here is my package.json:
1 {
2 "name": "app",
3 "version": "0.0.0",
4 "private": true,
5 "scripts": {
6 "start": "node ./bin/www"
7 },
8 "dependencies": {
9 "body-parser": "~1.12.4",
10 "cookie-parser": "~1.3.5",
11 "debug": "~2.2.0",
12 "express": "~4.12.4",
13 "jade": "~1.9.2",
14 "morgan": "~1.5.3",
15 "serve-favicon": "~2.2.1",
16 "stylus": "0.42.3"
17 }
18 }
node version: v0.10.38
pm2 version: 0.12.15
How do I even debug this? I am not sure why it's failing, is there some other place I need to check? My app.js file?

Answer 1

First, I'd try node ./bin/www and just make sure that works correctly.
I'm not sure what the "official" way to figure this out is but this should work:
You could put an uncaught exception handler into your code which simply writes to a file or do something else.
process.on('uncaughtException', function(err) {
console.log('Caught exception: ' + err);
throw err;
});
Edit:
Based on your comment the reason you're having issues is because app.js is not the real entry point in your application. The real entry point is ./bin/www
So you need to tell PM2 to start that file rather than app.js like this:
pm2 start ./bin/www