Error: listen EADDRINUSE when running a Node.js script

Question

I am getting this Error: listen EADDRINUSE when I run the following simpleJSON.js script:

var http = require('http'),
    fs = require('fs');

function handle_incoming_request(req, res) {
    console.log("Incoming request: (" + req.method + ") " + req.url);

    load_album_list(function(err, albums) {
        if (err != null) {
            res.writeHead(503, { "Content-Type" : "application/json" });
            res.end(JSON.stringify({ error: "file_error", message: err.message }) + "\n");
            return;
        }

        res.writeHead(200, { "Content-Type" : "application/json" });
        res.end(JSON.stringify({ error: null, data: { albums: albums }}) + "\n");
    });
}

function load_album_list (callback) {
    fs.readdir('albums/', function (err, file_list) {
        callback(err, file_list);
    });
}

var s = http.createServer(handle_incoming_request);
s.listen(8080);  

Here is the full error I see in my terminal :

$ node simpleJSON.js 

events.js:72
        throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
              ^
Error: listen EADDRINUSE
    at errnoException (net.js:904:11)
    at Server._listen2 (net.js:1042:14)
    at listen (net.js:1064:10)
    at Server.listen (net.js:1138:5)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/max/dev/livelessons/photoApp/simpleJSON.js:26:3)
    at Module._compile (module.js:456:26)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:474:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)
    at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:497:10)

And here is my directory structure:

$ tree
.
├── albums
│   ├── australia2012
│   │   ├── picture_01.jpg
│   │   ├── picture_02.jpg
│   │   ├── picture_03.jpg
│   │   ├── picture_04.jpg
│   │   ├── picture_05.jpg
│   │   ├── picture_06.jpg
│   │   └── picture_07.jpg
│   ├── italy2012
│   │   ├── picture_01.jpg
│   │   ├── picture_02.jpg
│   │   ├── picture_03.jpg
│   │   ├── picture_04.jpg
│   │   ├── picture_05.jpg
│   │   ├── picture_06.jpg
│   │   └── picture_07.jpg
│   └── japan2010
│       ├── picture_01.jpg
│       ├── picture_02.jpg
│       ├── picture_03.jpg
│       ├── picture_04.jpg
│       ├── picture_05.jpg
│       ├── picture_06.jpg
│       └── picture_07.jpg
└── simpleJSON.js

4 directories, 22 files

Answer 1

Has it worked before? It's possible that there is still a leftover process that is connected to the port 8080. Try changing the port number to see if that is the problem.

Answer 2

kill the running process of 8080 port and restart the node server. this is because your port 8080 is already busy in other process.