Not reloading browser (WSL)

Issue details

Browsersync is failing to reload my browser. I’m attempting to use it for the first time on a new machine, running WSL. In the simplest case this manifests as the browser not reloading when files are changed. I have also tried running a couple of different static site generators (11ty and Jigsaw), in both cases the servers become unresponsive after a file is changed, hanging at [reloading browser]. (I have used both of these tools successfully on another machines running WSL).

Steps to reproduce/test case

1. Create index.html
2. Create css/styles.css
3. Run browser-sync start --server --files "css/*.css"
4. Edit css/styles.css

Please specify which version of Browsersync, node and npm you’re running

• Browsersync [ 2.26.13 ]
• Node [ 8.17.0 ]
• Npm [ 6.13.4 ]

Affected platforms

• linux
• windows
• OS X
• freebsd
• solaris
• other (please specify which)

Browsersync use-case

• API
• Gulp
• Grunt
• CLI

If CLI, please paste the entire command below

browser-sync start --server --files "css/*.css"

for all other use-cases, (gulp, grunt etc), please show us exactly how you’re using Browsersync

• https://github.com/11ty/eleventy/
• https://github.com/tighten/jigsaw

[lsze]

I was able to fix a ton of unexpected Browser-sync behavior and slowness in WSL2 by making sure all my projects are under my WSL home user path /home/user/ rather than under a Windows path /mnt/c/.

[yuripallada]

@smth Not sure which IDE you’re using, but if you’re using Visual Studio Code and want to have the files in WSL2, you can install the Remote - WSL extension in visual studio code.

1. Open VScode on your windows machine
2. Install the Remote - WSL extension
3. Go to the WSL2 filesystem and the folder you want to open with code
4. type code .
5. WSL2 will install VS Code server, and open VS Code on your local machine. The directory that it opens is directly linked to the directory in WSL2, which means you can go ahead and do yarn start in your WSL2 terminal, open the browser with browsersync, and edit code in your VS Code window on the host machine, and it will perfectly reload the browser when you save code in VS Code now!

I hope this helps, it works for me!