'react-scripts start' does not work on linux (WSL)

Describe the bug

On linux (WSL) npm run start fails with the following error spawn powershell.exe ENOENT

Not sure why its trying to spawn powershell on Linux but this seem to have been introduced from version 3.0.0 of react-scripts. The workaround is to downgrade react-scripts to 2.1.8

This is reproducible on a fresh install using latest npm version 6.14.8 and latest nodejs verison 14.10.1 (also reproducible on 10.x)

Did you try recovering your dependencies?

Reproducible on a fresh install so unlikely its related to corrupt dependencies.

Environment

System:
    OS: Linux 4.19 Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa)
    CPU: (8) x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz
  Binaries:
    Node: 14.10.1 - /usr/bin/node
    Yarn: Not Found
    npm: 6.14.8 - /usr/bin/npm
  Browsers:
    Chrome: Not Found
    Firefox: Not Found
  npmPackages:
    react: ^16.13.1 => 16.13.1 
    react-dom: ^16.13.1 => 16.13.1 
    react-scripts: 2.1.8 => 2.1.8 
  npmGlobalPackages:
    create-react-app: Not Found

Steps to reproduce

1. npx create-react-app hello-world
2. cd hello-world
3. npm run start

Note: This is reproducible at least on Linux (WSL - Ubuntu), it maybe reproducible on Linux generally but I have not tested.

Expected behavior

Compiled successfully!

You can now view hello-world in the browser.

  Local:            http://localhost:3000/
  On Your Network:  http://172.31.234.113:3000/

Note that the development build is not optimized.
To create a production build, use npm run build.

Actual behavior

Starting the development server...

events.js:291
      throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
      ^

Error: spawn powershell.exe ENOENT
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:268:19)
    at onErrorNT (internal/child_process.js:464:16)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:80:21)
Emitted 'error' event on ChildProcess instance at:
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:274:12)
    at onErrorNT (internal/child_process.js:464:16)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:80:21) {
  errno: -2,
  code: 'ENOENT',
  syscall: 'spawn powershell.exe',
  path: 'powershell.exe',
  spawnargs: [
    '-NoProfile',
    '-NonInteractive',
    '–ExecutionPolicy',
    'Bypass',
    '-EncodedCommand',
    'UwB0AGEAcgB0ACAAIgBgACIAaAB0AHQAcAA6AC8ALwBsAG8AYwBhAGwAaABvAHMAdAA6ADMAMAAwADAAYAAiACIA'
  ]
}

Reproducible demo

This can be reproduced on a newly created project so demo project is not relevant.

[eclecto]

I was able to bandaid this by symlinking /c to /mnt/c

[ezhikov]

Have same issue on WSL2 with newly created app and react-scripts@4.0.2

It fails only if we open default browser. If you set env variable BROWSER to none there will be no error, so I guess error is in react-dev-utils.

Edit

Jumped into rabbit hole and found that package open have hardcoded value: '/mnt/c/Windows/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0/powershell.exe'. I remaped default mount point, so now /mnt/c/ is absolutely empty, hence the error. It should be fixed here, but not sure it it was released yet.