Sass failing to compile - Web Essentials 2013 Update 4

Question

I\'m currently using Web Essentials 2013 update 4 to provide support for compiling .scss files in Visual Studio.

The tool has worked fine for me in the past however

Answer 1

I had a similar problem, after installing Web Essentials 2013 Update 4 the .scss files started throwing errors like this to the output:

Something went wrong reaching: ... 
SCSS: Site.scss compilation failed: The service failed to respond to this request
Possible cause: Syntax Error!

The only solution for me was this:

1. Uninstall Web Essentials
2. Delete %AppData%\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0
3. Delete %AppData%\Roaming\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0
4. Repair VS 2013.4
5. Reinstall Web Essentials

Source: https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/56633663-6799-41d7-9df7-0f2a504ca361/view/Discussions/1#15143

And a heads-up: If you import other .scss files, make sure they are in the correct location. When I updated Twitter.Bootstrap.Sass 3.3.3 via NuGet, the related .scss files were moved to a different folder and I had to update references. For example:

Before:

@import "../sass/bootstrap/_utilities.scss";

After:

@import "../stylesheets/bootstrap/_utilities.scss";

Answer 2

I had the same problem; in order to help diagnose it I created a minimal .scss file with dummy CSS rules - it generated the same error.

Then I went to my long-time tested and fully working legacy .scss file - it generated the same error. Something is wrong here, I thought.

After tinkering with the issue for a while, somehow it got fixed by closing Visual Studio, reloading and reopening the solution.

Answer 3

I had the same problem, and spent some time uninstalling and re-installing Web Essentials. I tried deleting the parts of AppData that seemed to be related to Web Essential, all with no success at compiling the scss file.

So I created a new .scss with minimal content, that compiled. Then I started copying over pieces from the failing one. After a couple of copies, the new one failed too. I was able to zero in on the failure. It was caused by this line:

$highlightcolor: #67a0f;

Do you see the problem? the hex color code is missing a digit. it should have been 67a0f5. Fixing this fixed the problem with the original file.

I had gone over the file looking for syntax errors, but didn't spot the short color def.

I hope this saves someone some time and frustration.

Answer 4

I had this problem and determined that when I was running a Compile All SASS Files, the plugin was trying to compile files found in the /obj directory of the project which failed, and consequently caused subsequent compilation to fail. Deleting the /obj directory and restarting VS fixed the issue.

Answer 5

This was to do with the settings I had in my WebEssentials-Settings.json file. In version 3, the 'UseRubyRuntime' parameter needed to be marked as true to allow it to auto compile into the relevant files. Since version 4 this can be marked as false as WE now has a built in compiler which I believe may have been conflicting with the RubyRuntime version I was trying to use.

Answer 6

I am having the same problem and have eliminated actual syntax errors and incorrect path references. I have found two things out about this.

1. This happens when there is a file that only specifies variables and has no actual scss or css markup. This is more of a hack as you may have to put unwanted css in a variables file.
2. Turning off Autoprefixer will resolve the issue entirely, but at the cost of not using this feature.