Infinite rebuild loop in vagrant environment in watch mode

Bug report

What is the current behavior? Using Webpack 5.11.1 (update from 4) inside a vagrant machine on macOS i have a loop of rebuild in watch mode, for example:

• starting the client:watch with npx webpack --devtool eval-source-map --config webpack.client.js --watch
• first build works
• start a lot of rebuild because inside the compiler.removedFiles variables found the /src/common/js/modules path that is not really deleted from fs

If the current behavior is a bug, please provide the steps to reproduce.

this is our configuration:

{
  mode: 'development',
  target: 'web',
  watchOptions: { poll: 500, ignored: [ 'public', 'build' ] },
  watch: true,
  devtool: false,
  entry: {
    'bundle.0.0.1': [
      '/var/www/hs-goldenrod/wls/PROJECTNAME/src/js/client.js'
    ]
  },
   resolve: {
    extensions: [ '.js', '.jsx', '.scss', '.css' ],
    alias: {
      'module-analytics': '/var/www/PROJECTNAME/src/packages/module-analytics',
      ...
    },
    fallback: {
      fs: false,
      net: false,
      tls: false,
      console: false,
      child_process: false,
      path: '/node_modules/path-browserify/index.js',
      crypto: '/node_modules/crypto-browserify/index.js',
      stream: '/node_modules/stream-browserify/index.js',
      https: '/node_modules/https-browserify/index.js',
      http: '/node_modules/stream-http/index.js',
      zlib: '/node_modules/browserify-zlib/lib/index.js'
    }
  },
   output: {
    path: 'public/js',
    publicPath: '/js/',
    filename: '[name].min.js',
    chunkFilename: '[name].0.0.1.min.js'
  },
  node: {},
  optimization: { splitChunks: { cacheGroups: [Object] }, minimize: true }

the deleted and changed file list is printed by an our Webpack plugin

class WatchRunPlugin {
  // Define `apply` as its prototype method which is supplied with compiler as its argument
  apply(compiler) {
    // Specify the event hook to attach to
    compiler.hooks.watchRun.tap("WatchRunPlugin", (comp) => {
      if (comp.modifiedFiles) {
        const changedFiles = Array.from(
          comp.modifiedFiles,
          (file) => `\n  ${file}`
        ).join("");
        console.log("\n===============================");
        console.log("FILES CHANGED:", changedFiles);
        console.log("===============================");
      }
      if (comp.removedFiles) {
        const removedFiles = Array.from(
          comp.removedFiles,
          (file) => `\n  ${file}`
        ).join("");
        console.log("\n===============================");
        console.log("FILES REMOVED:", removedFiles);
        console.log("===============================");
      }
    });
  }
}

module.exports = () => {
  return new WatchRunPlugin();
};

and this is a example prompt

[webpack-cli] watching files for updates...
3% setup watch run webpack-cli[webpack-cli] Compilation starting...
3% setup watch run WatchRunPlugin
===============================
FILES CHANGED:
  /var/www/hs-goldenrod/wls/PROJECTNAME/src/common/js/server.js
===============================

===============================
FILES REMOVED:
===============================
99% done plugins webpack-cli[webpack-cli] Compilation finished
asset server.bundle.js 24.9 MiB [emitted] (name: server)
asset PropertyOverlay.bundle.js 100 KiB [emitted] (name: PropertyOverlay)
asset DetailsOverlay.bundle.js 96.9 KiB [emitted] (name: DetailsOverlay)
asset AmenitiesFilter.bundle.js 46.1 KiB [emitted] (name: AmenitiesFilter)
asset ReviewsOverlay.bundle.js 32.5 KiB [emitted] (name: ReviewsOverlay)
orphan modules 3.07 MiB [orphan] 542 modules
runtime modules 4.07 KiB 12 modules
javascript modules 7.36 MiB
  modules by path ./node_modules/ 3.69 MiB 623 modules
  modules by path ./src/ 3.66 MiB
    modules by path ./src/packages/ 2.89 MiB 171 modules
    modules by path ./src/common/js/ 789 KiB
      cacheable modules 788 KiB 2 modules
      2 modules
json modules 495 KiB
  modules by path ./node_modules/har-schema/lib/*.json 6.93 KiB 18 modules
  modules by path ./node_modules/iconv-lite/encodings/tables/*.json 86.7 KiB 8 modules
  modules by path ./node_modules/encoding/node_modules/iconv-lite/encodings/tables/*.json 86.7 KiB 8 modules
  modules by path ./node_modules/ajv/lib/refs/*.json 5.58 KiB 3 modules


webpack 5.11.1 compiled with 1 warning in 21320 ms
[webpack-cli] watching files for updates...
3% setup watch run webpack-cli[webpack-cli] Compilation starting...
3% setup watch run WatchRunPlugin
===============================
FILES CHANGED:
===============================

===============================
FILES REMOVED:
  /var/www/hs-goldenrod/wls/PROJECTNAME/src/common/js/modules
===============================
99% done plugins webpack-cli[webpack-cli] Compilation finished
asset server.bundle.js 24.9 MiB [emitted] (name: server)
asset PropertyOverlay.bundle.js 100 KiB [emitted] (name: PropertyOverlay)
asset DetailsOverlay.bundle.js 96.9 KiB [emitted] (name: DetailsOverlay)
asset AmenitiesFilter.bundle.js 46.1 KiB [emitted] (name: AmenitiesFilter)
asset ReviewsOverlay.bundle.js 32.5 KiB [emitted] (name: ReviewsOverlay)
orphan modules 3.07 MiB [orphan] 542 modules
runtime modules 4.07 KiB 12 modules
javascript modules 7.36 MiB
  modules by path ./node_modules/ 3.69 MiB 623 modules
  modules by path ./src/ 3.66 MiB
    modules by path ./src/packages/ 2.89 MiB 171 modules
    modules by path ./src/common/js/ 789 KiB
      cacheable modules 788 KiB 2 modules
      2 modules
json modules 495 KiB
  modules by path ./node_modules/har-schema/lib/*.json 6.93 KiB 18 modules
  modules by path ./node_modules/iconv-lite/encodings/tables/*.json 86.7 KiB 8 modules
  modules by path ./node_modules/encoding/node_modules/iconv-lite/encodings/tables/*.json 86.7 KiB 8 modules
  modules by path ./node_modules/ajv/lib/refs/*.json 5.58 KiB 3 modules
webpack 5.11.1 compiled with 1 warning in 18108 ms

In the first case the rebuild is correct because the edit of the /var/www/hs-goldenrod/wls/PROJECTNAME/src/common/js/server.js file was made by me

but in the second case the rebuild is wrong because nobody delete the folder /var/www/hs-goldenrod/wls/PROJECTNAME/src/common/js/modules and in the fs the folder is present and not touched

In fact the wrong rebuild is not just one but go in a infinite loop that have always the /var/www/hs-goldenrod/wls/PROJECTNAME/src/common/js/modules path inside the deletedFiles

What is the expected behavior?

just rebuild if a file is changed and not if a folder that is not deletes is in deleted list

Other relevant information: webpack version: 5.11.1 Node.js version: v12.13.1 Operating System: vagrant machine with Debian

[sokra]

There is a difference how webpack 4 and 5 handle watching of non-existing files. These invalid paths are treated as non-existing (since fs calls fail).

[sokra]

importers probably would need to ability to provide their own includedFiles as result.