Composer Json Error

[artmuscode]

Description

Error when trying to run the installation process for Docker Magento

In JsonFile.php line 375:

"./composer.json" does not contain valid JSON
Parse error on line 1:

^
Expected one of: 'STRING', 'NUMBER', 'NULL', 'TRUE', 'FALSE', '{', '['

config [-g|--global] [-e|--editor] [-a|--auth] [--unset] [-l|--list] [-f|--file FILE] [--absolute] [-j|--json] [-m|--merge] [--append] [--source] [--] [ [...]]

Composer auth has been set up.
Fixing filesystem ownerships...
Filesystem ownerships fixed.

In JsonFile.php line 375:

"./composer.json" does not contain valid JSON
Parse error on line 1:

^
Expected one of: 'STRING', 'NUMBER', 'NULL', 'TRUE', 'FALSE', '{', '['

create-project [-s|--stability STABILITY] [--prefer-source] [--prefer-dist] [--prefer-install PREFER-INSTALL] [--repository REPOSITORY] [--repository-url REPOSITORY-URL] [--add-repository] [--dev] [--no-dev] [--no-custom-installers] [--no-scripts] [--no-progress] [--no-secure-http] [--keep-vcs] [--remove-vcs] [--no-install] [--no-audit] [--audit-format AUDIT-FORMAT] [--ignore-platform-req IGNORE-PLATFORM-REQ] [--ignore-platform-reqs] [--ask] [--] [ [ []]]

Steps To Reproduce

1. Running Installation Process for Docker Magento Mac M4

Expected Result
Install Magento 2.4.8-p3

Actual Result
Failure see error response above

[dosubot]

This error typically indicates an empty or corrupted composer.json file was created during setup. Here are a few things to check:

1. Check if composer.json is empty:

ls -lh src/composer.json

If it's 0 bytes, the composer create-project command failed but left an empty file behind.

2. Clean up and retry:

rm -rf src
bin/removeall

Then run your setup again.

3. Reset host Composer auth (can sometimes cause issues):

rm ~/.composer/auth.json

4. For Magento 2.4.8+, verify your compose.yaml uses bind mounts (./src:/var/www/html) rather than named volumes — this has caused similar issues.

This is a known recurring issue that happens when the initial Composer download fails partway through. Could you share which setup script/command you're running and confirm whether the src/composer.json file exists and has content?

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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[artmuscode]

The src folder seems to not get created.

[dosubot]

The src folder is created by bin/setup and then populated by bin/download using Composer. Since you had a Composer error earlier, it likely failed before creating/populating the folder.

This is a known issue — the setup can fail silently, leaving src missing or empty.

To fix, try a complete cleanup and restart:

bin/removeall
rm -rf src

Then run your setup again from scratch. Which setup method are you using — the automated onelinesetup script or manual installation steps?

To reply, just mention @dosu.

---

^{How did I do? Good | Irrelevant | Incorrect | Verbose | Hallucination | Report 🐛 | Other}

   

[artmuscode]

Got it working thanks.