Error: No default engine was specified and no extension was provided

Question

I am working through setting up a http server using node.js and engine. However, I keep running into issues that I have little information on how to resolve I would apprecia

Answer 1

You can use express-error-handler to use static html pages for error handling and to avoid defining a view handler.

The error was probably caused by a 404, maybe a missing favicon (apparent if you had included the previous console message). The 'view handler' of 'html' doesn't seem to be valid in 4.x express.

Regardless of the cause, you can avoid defining a (valid) view handler as long as you modify additional elements of your configuration.

Your options are to fix this problem are:

• Define a valid view handler as in other answers
• Use send() instead of render to return the content directly

http://expressjs.com/en/api.html#res.render

Using render without a filepath automatically invokes a view handler as with the following two lines from your configuration:

res.render('404', { url: req.url });

and:

res.render('500);

Make sure you install express-error-handler with:

npm install --save express-error-handler

Then import it in your app.js

var ErrorHandler = require('express-error-handler');

Then change your error handling to use:

// define below all other routes
var errorHandler = ErrorHandler({
  static: {
    '404': 'error.html' // put this file in your Public folder
    '500': 'error.html' // ditto
});

// any unresolved requests will 404
app.use(function(req,res,next) {
  var err = new Error('Not Found');
  err.status(404);
  next(err);
}

app.use(errorHandler);