Rails webpacker:install fails with generic error - ruby-on-rails

Question

I am new to Ruby on Rails and this is the very first project I have attempted. I installed Rails and got to the screen that lets me know that I have successfully installed Rails. Rails Page
I ran rails g controller home index to create my first web page. It completed successfully and displayed this:
user#Ubuntu:~/dev/app$ rails g controller home index
Running via Spring preloader in process 183578
create app/controllers/home_controller.rb
route get 'home/index'
invoke erb
create app/views/home
create app/views/home/index.html.erb
invoke test_unit
create test/controllers/home_controller_test.rb
invoke helper
create app/helpers/home_helper.rb
invoke test_unit
invoke assets
invoke scss
create app/assets/stylesheets/home.scss
I tried to access the page, but it gave me this error:
Webpacker can't find application.js in /home/user/dev/app/public/packs/manifest.json. Possible causes:
1. You want to set webpacker.yml value of compile to true for your environment
unless you are using the `webpack -w` or the webpack-dev-server.
2. webpack has not yet re-run to reflect updates.
3. You have misconfigured Webpacker's config/webpacker.yml file.
4. Your webpack configuration is not creating a manifest.
Your manifest contains:
{
}
I tried changing cache_manifest: false and extract_css: false in webpacker.yml to true but it didn't seem to help. I felt that webpacker was not installed correctly so I ran rails webpacker:install. It fails and never successfully completes:
`user#Ubuntu:~/dev/app$ bundle exec rails webpacker:install
conflict config/webpacker.yml
Overwrite /home/user/dev/app/config/webpacker.yml? (enter "h" for help) [Ynaqdhm] n
skip config/webpacker.yml
Copying webpack core config
exist config/webpack
identical config/webpack/development.js
identical config/webpack/environment.js
identical config/webpack/production.js
identical config/webpack/test.js
Copying postcss.config.js to app root directory
identical postcss.config.js
Copying babel.config.js to app root directory
identical babel.config.js
Copying .browserslistrc to app root directory
identical .browserslistrc
rails aborted!
NoMethodError: undefined method `exists?' for Dir:Class
/home/user/dev/app/bin/rails:5:in `<top (required)>'
/home/user/dev/app/bin/spring:10:in `require'
/home/user/dev/app/bin/spring:10:in `block in <top (required)>'
/home/user/dev/app/bin/spring:7:in `<top (required)>'
Tasks: TOP => app:template`
Any idea how to resolve this? This error is so generic, I am having trouble searching for answers.
rails aborted!
NoMethodError: undefined method `exists?' for Dir:Class
Environment:
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Desktop |
Rails version: 6.1.7 |
Ruby version: 3.2.0