SyntaxError: Unexpected token M (when running cordova project from Visual Studio 2015)

Question

When I attempt to run my Cordova app using Visual Studio 2015 using Remote Device, I get an error \"SyntaxError: Unexpected token M\". Visual Studio is installed on windows

Answer 1

Found the solution to this!!!

Luckily I had an old backup of my project which didn't produce the "SyntaxError: Unexpected token M" when running it on the remote device. I used a compare tool to see the differences in files/folders. It turned out that the "remote_ios.json" file located in the plugins folder was corrupted. I deleted it and on the next run it generated a proper one and everything now works as expected. I can deploy to the iOS simulator on my mac as well as my iPhone.

I did notice a few more times that the file did get corrupted. So every time I just deleted the file and it got recreated and everything worked. Sounds like a bug in Visual Studio 2015.

Here's how my corrupted remote_os.json file looked like:

{
    "prepare_queue": {
        "installed": [],
        "uninstalled": []
    },
    "config_munge": {
        "files": {
            "framework": {
                "parents": {
                    "ImageIO.framework": [
                        {
                            "xml": true,
                            "count": 1
                        }
                    ],
                    "CoreLocation.framework": [
                        {
                            "xml": false,
                            "count": 1
                        }
                    ],
                    "CoreGraphics.framework": [
                        {
                            "xml": false,
                            "count": 4
                        }
                    ],
                    "AssetsLibrary.framework": [
                        {
                            "xml": false,
                            "count": 3
                        }
                    ],
                    "MobileCoreSe