Gulp jekyll browser-sync rebuild loop - npm

Question

I have been using a Gulp script on my Jekyll project together with browser-sync and some other plugins (to minify/concat JS/Sass and to minify images and svg).
Starting a few days ago (I'm not sure what caused it, using my old gulp scripts doesn't help) it's causing a loop of 2-15 reloads every time I save a HTML or JS file.
This returns in the following in the terminal:
[00:51:47] Finished 'jekyll-build' after 850 ms
[00:51:47] Starting 'jekyll-rebuild'...
[BS] Reloading Browsers...
[00:51:47] Finished 'jekyll-rebuild' after 241 μs
[00:51:47] Starting 'jekyll-build'...
Generating...
done in 0.188 seconds.
Auto-regeneration: disabled. Use --watch to enable.
[00:51:48] Finished 'jekyll-build' after 881 ms
[00:51:48] Starting 'jekyll-rebuild'...
[BS] Reloading Browsers...
[00:51:48] Finished 'jekyll-rebuild' after 480 μs
[00:51:48] Starting 'jekyll-build'...
Generating...
done in 0.251 seconds.
Auto-regeneration: disabled. Use --watch to enable.
[00:51:49] Finished 'jekyll-build' after 826 ms
[00:51:49] Starting 'jekyll-rebuild'...
[BS] Reloading Browsers...
[00:51:49] Finished 'jekyll-rebuild' after 942 μs
My Gulpfile looks like the following. Sorry for pasting so much code in here.
/**
* Build the Jekyll Site
*/
gulp.task('jekyll-build', function (done) {
browserSync.notify(messages.jekyllBuild);
return cp.spawn('jekyll', ['build'], {stdio: 'inherit'})
.on('close', done);
});
/**
* Rebuild Jekyll & do page reload
*/
gulp.task('jekyll-rebuild', ['jekyll-build'], function () {
browserSync.reload();
});
/**
* Wait for jekyll-build, then launch the Server
*/
gulp.task('browser-sync', ['sass', 'jekyll-build', 'jekyll-rebuild', 'imagemin', 'svgmin'], function() {
browserSync({
server: {
baseDir: '_site'
}
});
});
/**
* Compile files from _scss into both _site/css (for live injecting) and site (for future jekyll builds)
*/
gulp.task('sass', function () {
return gulp.src('_scss/main.scss')
.pipe(sass({
includePaths: ['scss'],
onError: browserSync.notify
}))
.pipe(prefix(['last 15 versions', '> 1%', 'ie 8', 'ie 7'], { cascade: true }))
.pipe(gulp.dest('_site/css'))
.pipe(browserSync.reload({stream:true}))
.pipe(gulp.dest('css'))
.pipe(rename({
extname: ".min.css"
}))
.pipe(uglifycss())
.pipe(gulp.dest('css'))
.pipe(gulp.dest('_site/css'));
});
/** optimize images **/
gulp.task('imagemin', function() {
return gulp.src('assets/img/*')
.pipe(imagemin({
progressive: true,
svgoPlugins: [{removeViewBox: false}],
use: [pngquant()]
}))
.pipe(gulp.dest('./_site/assets/img'))
.pipe(browserSync.reload({stream:true}));
});
gulp.task('svgmin', function() {
return gulp.src('assets/svg/*.svg')
.pipe(svgmin())
.pipe(gulp.dest('./_site/assets/svg'));
});
gulp.task('scripts', function() {
return gulp.src([
'***scripts***' //removed for readability
])
.pipe(include())
.pipe(plumber({
errorHandler: function(err){
notify('JS compile error: ' + err);
}
}))
.pipe(concat('main.js'))
.pipe(gulp.dest('javascript'))
.pipe(rename({
extname: ".min.js"
}))
.pipe(uglify())
.pipe(gulp.dest('javascript'))
.pipe(browserSync.reload({stream:true}))
.pipe(notify('JS Compiled'));
});
/** Lint JS **/
gulp.task('lint', function() {
return gulp.src('javascript/app/*.js')
.pipe(jshint())
.pipe(jshint.reporter('default'));
});
/**
* Watch scss files for changes & recompile
* Watch html/md files, run jekyll & reload BrowserSync
*/
gulp.task('watch', function () {
gulp.watch('_scss/**/**/**/*.scss', ['sass']);
gulp.watch('assets/img/*', ['imagemin']);
gulp.watch('assets/svg/*', ['svgmin']);
gulp.watch('javascript/app/*.js', ['lint', 'scripts']);
gulp.watch(['*.html', '**/*.html', 'javascript/main.js', '_layouts/*.html', '_includes/**/**/*.html'], ['jekyll-rebuild']);
});
/**
* Default task, running just `gulp` will compile the sass,
* compile the jekyll site, launch BrowserSync & watch files.
*/
gulp.task('default', ['browser-sync', 'watch']);
Does anyone see something that could be causing this?

Answer 1

I think the line in your watch function is too broad:
gulp.watch(['*.html', '**/*.html', 'javascript/main.js', '_layouts/*.html', '_includes/**/**/*.html'], ['jekyll-rebuild']);
The second one - '**/*.html' I think is seeing any sub folders, which would include the _site folder, so it sees all the changes there and gets stuck in a loop. You change a file, it regenerates, the _site folder gets dumped, it sees that, regenerates, etc etc.
edit to excluded _site folder
If you have a lot of subfolders and want to include them with **/*.html try excluding the _site directory by adding '!_site/**/*' to the list.
Also, keep in mind that you are specifying .html, that will not pickup any markdown files.
Working on this question has led to this - I think this will be my new watch (I have no reason not to watch all files, other may not want this):
gulp.watch(['**/*.*', '!_site/**/*', '!node_modules/**/*','!.sass-cache/**/*' ], ['jekyll-rebuild']);
the first part seems to watch everything, the second part excludes the site folder and everything in it, then the same for node_modules and .sass-cache.. So far I have not been able to break it, and this is much simpler than what I had:
gulp.watch(['./*', '_layouts/*', '_videos/*', 'order-online/*', '_includes/*', '_posts/*', '_sass/*', 'css/*', 'services/*', '_data/*' ], ['jekyll-rebuild']);