The Problem⌗

I recently created a new SvelteKit project using the Svelte 5 preview and kept getting an error at the beginning of every Svelte component:

A screenshot of VS Code showing an error at the first character of a Svelte file, marked with a red squiggly line. The error message reads “e.children.findLastIndex is not a function svelte”

The error was e.children.findLastIndex is not a function (svelte). It was showing up even on the basic SvelteKit skeleton starter project as soon as I added a <style></style> block.

The Fix⌗

I looked around online, and I didn’t see anyone having this problem. This led me to believe that it was likely an issue with my local environment or configuration.

I looked in my VS Code configuration and found this line:

{
  "svelte.language-server.runtime": "/Users/casey/.nvm/versions/node/v16.13.0/bin/node"
}

I didn’t remember setting that or why I did it. However, once I removed it and reloaded my VS Code, the error went away!

So if you’re having this issue yourself:

  • Check for a config option similar to this in your VS Code settings.json and delete it if you find one
  • Try updating your Node.JS to a new version. I’m using version 21.1.0 myself.