Karma-webpack takes ~2 minutes to load

Using 1.7.0 and webpack 1.12

When I start my unit tests I get an the following logs with loglevel: config.LOG_DEBUG

02 03 2016 09:19:46.010:DEBUG [plugin]: Loading karma-* from /.../node_modules
02 03 2016 09:19:46.013:DEBUG [plugin]: Loading plugin /.../node_modules/karma-chai.
02 03 2016 09:19:46.014:DEBUG [plugin]: Loading plugin /.../node_modules/karma-chai-as-promised.
02 03 2016 09:19:46.015:DEBUG [plugin]: Loading plugin /.../node_modules/karma-chai-sinon.
02 03 2016 09:19:46.017:DEBUG [plugin]: Loading plugin /.../node_modules/karma-chrome-launcher.
02 03 2016 09:19:46.021:DEBUG [plugin]: Loading plugin /.../node_modules/karma-coverage.
02 03 2016 09:19:46.207:DEBUG [plugin]: Loading plugin /.../node_modules/karma-firefox-launcher.
02 03 2016 09:19:46.209:DEBUG [plugin]: Loading plugin /.../node_modules/karma-mocha.
02 03 2016 09:19:46.210:DEBUG [plugin]: Loading plugin /.../node_modules/karma-nyan-reporter.
02 03 2016 09:19:46.257:DEBUG [plugin]: Loading plugin /.../node_modules/karma-sinon.
02 03 2016 09:19:46.258:DEBUG [plugin]: Loading plugin /.../node_modules/karma-webpack.
02 03 2016 09:21:50.288:DEBUG [karma]: List of files has changed, trying to execute
02 03 2016 09:21:50.289:WARN [karma]: No captured browser, open http://localhost:9876/
02 03 2016 09:21:50.291:DEBUG [watcher]: Watching "/.../app/index.test.js"
02 03 2016 09:21:50.294:INFO [karma]: Karma v0.13.19 server started at http://localhost:9876/
02 03 2016 09:21:50.298:INFO [launcher]: Starting browser Firefox

Notice that loading the karma-webpack takes a little under two minutes to load before the next line runs?

I inherited a fairly large app it has over 640 unit tests. But by far the thing that takes the longest is waiting for karma-webpack module to load. I am trying to figure out why it takes so long to load.

Currently each test is required by the file that it is testing, like so:

// inside custom-date-form directive
if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'test') {
  require('./custom-date-form.test')(ngModule)
}

I have tried to fix it with a few configuration tweaks but I haven’t seen any results. Is there a way I can figure out exactly why it is taking so long to load?

[tf]

I am seeing a similar problem. From what I have found out so far, it looks like karma-webpack triggers an initial Webpack run right when it is initialized. I was able to optimize test runtime (also on subsequent karma runs) by removing unneeded entry items from the Webpack config used by karma.webpack and moving to the “Alternative usage” proposed in the Readme. Before karma-webkit was basically recompiling the whole bundle for each test file.

[TheMcMurder]

@hankthewhale no and unfortunately I no longer have access to the project where this is an issue.