"Error: not found: java" when running webdriver.io test

I'm trying to run a webdriver.io test suite from the VS Code debugger but it is failing with the error message:

ERROR @wdio/cli:utils: A service failed in the 'onPrepare' hook
Error: not found: java
at getNotFoundError (/Users/andrew/projects/rod-licensing-tests/packages/frontend-acceptance-tests/node_modules/selenium-standalone/node_modules/which/which.js:10:17)

How do I get round this? From looking at similar issues on the web, I've tried the following with the same results:

1. npm install
2. installing Java using npm install java
3. installing selenium-standalone with ./node_modules/.bin/selenium-standalone install
4. adding an environment variable to my launch.json config: "JAVA_HOME": "/usr/libexec/java_home"
5. updating Java on my Mac to Java 8 update 271 via System Preferences

The tests do run successfully using Docker, but I'd ideally want to run this from the IDE too so that I can quickly start and debug them. Also, my colleague can run the same tests using config in IntelliJ IDE Ultimate but I feel this should be possible in VS Code too.

This is the current content of my launch.json file:

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Launch via NPM",
      "type": "pwa-node",
      "args": [
        "conf/local.conf.js",
        "--logLevel trace"
      ],
      "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}/packages/frontend-acceptance-tests",
      "env": {
        "JAVA_HOME": "/usr/libexec/java_home",
        "SERVICE_URL": "[redacted]",
        "OAUTH_AUTHORITY_HOST_URL": "[redacted]",
        "OAUTH_TENANT": "[redacted]",
        "OAUTH_CLIENT_ID": "[redacted]",
        "OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET": "[redacted]",
        "OAUTH_SCOPE": "[redacted]",
        "DYNAMICS_API_PATH": "[redacted]",
        "DYNAMICS_API_VERSION": "9.1"
      },
      "request": "launch",
      "runtimeExecutable": "${workspaceFolder}/packages/frontend-acceptance-tests/node_modules/.bin/wdio",
      "runtimeVersion": "14.13.0"
    }
  ]
}

I'm pretty new to Node.JS so still learning how it fits together. Any suggestions appreciated!

In case we are using selenium-standalone-service for running the test then JAVA-JDK need to be installed. Also below dependency should be available in the package.json

{
    "devDependencies": {
        "@wdio/selenium-standalone-service": "^6.6.1"
    }
}

or

>npm install @wdio/selenium-standalone-service --save-dev

For VScode debugging

As per documentation we will need JavaScript Debugger (Nightly) enabled.

Sample .vscode/launch.json should looks like

{
    "name": "run select spec",
    "type": "node",
    "request": "launch",
    "args": ["wdio.conf.js", "--spec", "${file}"],
    "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
    "autoAttachChildProcesses": true,
    "program": "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/@wdio/cli/bin/wdio.js",
    "console": "integratedTerminal"
},

Example : launch.json

You usually need to configure your project sdk with Java version 1.8 which can be installed from this link:

https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/javase-jdk8-downloads.html

But I see you already tried that. Perhaps you need to add the selenium jar files to your project's dependencies.