Tailwind stops watching files if a symbolic link exists anywhere in the project

[Lebuin]

Link to the code that reproduces this issue

https://github.com/Lebuin/next-tailwind-repro

To Reproduce

If a symbolic link with the extension .js exists anywhere in the project folder, Tailwind does not rebuild the css file after adding a class somewhere in a template.

Repro:

• Run npm run dev
• Open localhost:3000 in a browser. The text on the page is red.
• In src/app/page.tsx: change the class text-red-500 to text-blue-500

Current vs. Expected behavior

• Expected result: the webpage reloads and the text on the page is blue.
• Actual result: the webpage reloads, but the class text-blue-500 is not present in the css, hence the text on the page is black.

Provide environment information

Operating System:
  Platform: linux
  Arch: x64
  Version: #53~22.04.1-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Jan 15 19:18:46 UTC 2
  Available memory (MB): 15887
  Available CPU cores: 8
Binaries:
  Node: 20.18.3
  npm: 10.8.2
  Yarn: N/A
  pnpm: N/A
Relevant Packages:
  next: 15.2.0 // Latest available version is detected (15.2.0).
  eslint-config-next: 15.2.0
  react: 19.0.0
  react-dom: 19.0.0
  typescript: 5.7.3
Next.js Config:
  output: N/A

Which area(s) are affected? (Select all that apply)

CSS

Which stage(s) are affected? (Select all that apply)

next dev (local)

Additional context

@tailwindcss/cli does not appear to be affected by this, which is why I am reporting this bug here. (E.g. observe the output of npm run tailwind in my repro repo.)

[tomelliot]

I had the same issue. I had some symlinks in .venv at the root of the project. Adding .venv to .gitignore enabled hot reload to start working again.