Cannot start app in SPA mode with node 20.19

[chargome]

I'm using React Router as a...

framework (SPA mode)

Reproduction

I could not find a way to set the node version on stackblitz, so i just created this repro: https://github.com/chargome/react-router-spa-repro

We were facing this in our e2e tests when upgrading from node 20.18.2 to 20.19.2. In this test we use react router as a framework but in SPA mode (ssr: false).

System Info

System:
    OS: macOS 15.4.1
    CPU: (10) arm64 Apple M1 Max
    Memory: 83.33 MB / 32.00 GB
    Shell: 5.9 - /bin/zsh
  Binaries:
    Node: 20.19.2 - ~/.volta/tools/image/node/20.19.2/bin/node
    Yarn: 1.22.22 - ~/.volta/tools/image/yarn/1.22.22/bin/yarn
    npm: 10.8.2 - ~/.volta/tools/image/node/20.19.2/bin/npm
    Watchman: 2024.12.02.00 - /opt/homebrew/bin/watchman
  Browsers:
    Chrome: 137.0.7151.105
    Firefox: 139.0.4
    Safari: 18.4
  npmPackages:
    @react-router/dev: ^7.5.3 => 7.6.2 
    @react-router/node: ^7.5.3 => 7.6.2 
    @react-router/serve: ^7.5.3 => 7.6.2 
    react-router: ^7.1.5 => 7.6.2 
    vite: ^6.3.3 => 6.3.5

Used Package Manager

npm

Expected Behavior

The app should start the same way as with node version 20.18

Actual Behavior

Starting the server using vite preview gave us this error when upgrading the node version to 20.19:

Error [ERR_REQUIRE_CYCLE_MODULE]: Cannot require() ES Module /Users/{user}/Desktop/code/sentry-javascript/dev-packages/e2e-tests/test-applications/react-router-7-framework-spa/node_modules/.pnpm/vite@6.3.5_@types+node@20.19.1_jiti@2.4.2_lightningcss@1.30.1/node_modules/vite/dist/node/index.js in a cycle. (from /Users/{user}/Desktop/code/sentry-javascript/dev-packages/e2e-tests/test-applications/react-router-7-framework-spa/node_modules/.pnpm/vite-node@3.2.4_@types+node@20.19.1_jiti@2.4.2_lightningcss@1.30.1/node_modules/vite-node/dist/server.cjs)
[WebServer]     at ModuleLoader.importSyncForRequire (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:309:15)
[WebServer]     at loadESMFromCJS (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1371:24)
[WebServer]     at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1511:5)
[WebServer]     at Module._extensions..js (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1572:16)
[WebServer]     at Module.load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1275:32)
```

[timdorr]

This is definitely related to require(esm) being unflagged: https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v20.19.0#requireesm-is-now-enabled-by-default

I'm not 100% sure, but this may be a Vite bug? I can get vite preview working when setting NODE_OPTIONS=--no-experimental-require-module. But there is the possibility we're loading something incorrectly during the startup of react-router serve.

[penalosa]

Having spent a bit of time investigating this (it was causing E2E test failures in create-cloudflare), I think this might be related to nodejs/node#57869, which seems to have been fixed in v22 & v24 (but not v20 yet).

[chargome]

Thanks for investigating guys!