[Bug]: "_shopify_essential" could not be defined.

[ceri-waterscreative]

Please confirm that you have:

• Searched existing issues to see if your issue is a duplicate. (If you’ve found a duplicate issue, feel free to add additional information in a comment on it.)
• Reproduced the issue in the latest CLI version.

In which of these areas are you experiencing a problem?

Theme

Expected behavior

I'm unsure if this is a CLI upgrade issue, or node upgrade problem. But since upgrading both the first time i run the command shopify theme dev I get an error. On subsequent tries it's fine??

Actual behavior

Error
"our development session could not be created because the "_shopify_essential" could not be defined. Please, check your internet"

Verbose output

Verbose output

Paste the output here!

Reproduction steps

1. Install CLI version 3.67.2 & node version 23.9.0
2. Run command shopify theme dev
3. It breaks?
4. Run it again.. it's fine?

Operating System

Windows 11

Shopify CLI version (shopify --version)

3.76.2

Shell

Git Bash

Node version (run node -v if you're not sure)

23.9.0

What language and version are you using in your application?

N/A