# Missing auto-regeneration ? --watch

**URL:** <https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/missing-auto-regeneration-watch/5651>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [February 17, 2021, 8:34am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/missing-auto-regeneration-watch/5651 "2021-02-17T08:34:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jordila](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/jordila/32/3488_2.png) [@jordila](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/jordila)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2021, 8:34am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/missing-auto-regeneration-watch/5651/1 "2021-02-17T08:34:12Z")

</div>

Ok, there are other threads/issues being reported on auto-regeneration, on [jekyll admin related scenario](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/auto-regeneration-not-working-even-with-watch-used/469) and [\_sass related](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/jekyll-not-watching-or-auto-regenerating-sass/1040) .

My scenario differs.

Editing includes / layout files, eventhough i’m using --watch option while ‘jekyll serve’ ,  
for whatever reason (confusing me) changes are not being taken in account :  
they only are once manually interrupted the server process and restarted again ? What am i missing ?

ThX !

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2021, 11:09am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/missing-auto-regeneration-watch/5651/2 "2021-02-17T11:09:35Z")

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The --watch is on by default.

The site will rebuild. You can look at your log for when this is done. And any buios errors (often why I don’t see changes in the browser because I broke the site)

You can also add this.

```auto
jekyll serve --livereload

```

That will refresh the browser after Jekyll has rebuilt.

If you have issues, restart your machine.  
If on windows or using subsystem, you have to add an extra Jekyll flag or gem to support watching. You can try this flag regardless of your OS to see if it helps.

```auto
--force-polling

```

> [@Jekyll serve hangs under WSL, requires restart to kill process](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/jekyll-serve-hangs-under-wsl-requires-restart-to-kill-process/5424/2):
>
> Try this jekyll serve --force-polling Based on 2016 issue which was my first result on “Jekyll subsystem frozen” search You can also use --no-watch to disable reloading on file change.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2021, 11:10am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/missing-auto-regeneration-watch/5651/3 "2021-02-17T11:10:32Z")

</div>

Do you have Jekyll admin installed? An old version?

Do you have any config values that disable watching?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jordila](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/jordila/32/3488_2.png) [@jordila](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/jordila)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2021, 12:05pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/missing-auto-regeneration-watch/5651/4 "2021-02-17T12:05:51Z")

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hey, @MichaelCurrin , ThX for… no, don’t have j. admin installed nor is an old jekyll version.

> GNU + Linux System here … FYI

Already using --force-polling

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2021, 2:02pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/missing-auto-regeneration-watch/5651/5 "2021-02-17T14:02:32Z")

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So to confirm, if you change and save any .md or .scss etc. file in your repo when running Jekyll serve, you see no change in content of the built files. And jekyll does not log to say it is rebuilding? Does it say anything?

You can try add --verbose to see what is going on at a lower level. It is too noisy for general use.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MichaelCurrin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/michaelcurrin/32/2340_2.png) [@MichaelCurrin](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/MichaelCurrin)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2021, 2:09pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/missing-auto-regeneration-watch/5651/6 "2021-02-17T14:09:03Z")

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What if you setup a new repo using:

```auto
bundle exec jekyll new ../new-project

```

And check there?

```auto
cd ../new project
bundle config set --local path vendor/bundle
bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve --trace

```

And then edit a file and check for reloading.

If that works, then we know the problem is your project code and dependencies and your global Ruby environment is fine.

Can you also verify using Ruby 2.7? Ruby 3 is out but not reliable for Jekyll yet.

One other thing. Try with incremental flag off. With incremental on, I found that editing a post will rebuild the post itself. But any pages which list that item in their post list or menu will be outdated.  
Jekyll 4 has great speed gains with caching and it is more friendly in what you get compared with incremental