Filesystem watch functionality is broken after upgrade from WSL 1 to WSL 2

[adam-arold]

Environment

Windows build number: Win32NT             10.0.19041.0 Microsoft Windows NT 10.0.19041.0
Your Distribution version: Ubuntu 18.04
Whether the issue is on WSL 2 and/or WSL 1: WSL2

Steps to reproduce

Run any Jekyll example project (like this) with bundler exec jekyll serve --watch on WSL 1 then upgrade to WSL 2 and try it again. In the first instance file system watch will work and the contents of the site will update, when changes are made, with WSL 2 it won't.

The same happens if I use nodemon to do the same.

Expected behavior

I expect file system watch to work.

Actual behavior

It doesn't work.

I don't know about the details regarding WSL, but this happens after upgrading from WSL 1 to WSL 2. It is reproducible.
#216 is related, but it is closed for some reason, although the bug persists.

[onomatopellan]

That's a known limitation of WSL2 when your code is in a /mnt/* folder. You need to move your project to the /home/user directory in order to have all the benefits of real Linux.

It's explained in the comparison page:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/compare-versions#performance-across-os-file-systems

[therealkenc]

/dupe #4739

[ghost]

Hi! We've identified this issue as a duplicate of another one that already exists in this repository. This specific instance is being closed in favor of tracking the concern over on the referenced thread.

Thanks for your report!

[adam-arold]

I'm sorry, @onomatopellan but what were you thinking? WSL 2 is practically useless for most use cases because of this issue. I had to downgrade to WSL 1 to get this functionality back. I can't move my project into WSL because then my IDE won't work. Who manages this project? Why did nobody think about this?

[onomatopellan]

@adam-arold I'm just a WSL user. It's normal WSL2 still doesn't support your scenario yet since it's a new technology and WSL1 is already 4 years old. Follow #4739 for more info.