😨 Problem
When I was building a website using gulp@^3.9.0
to compile sass on the build server with Node.js v12 installed, it failed.
Here are (part of) the errors shown in the console:
error 26-Jun-2020 08:35:02 gyp ERR! node -v v12.18.0
error 26-Jun-2020 08:35:02 gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v3.8.0
error 26-Jun-2020 08:35:02 gyp ERR! not ok
error 26-Jun-2020 08:35:02 Build failed with error code: 1
error 26-Jun-2020 08:35:05
error 26-Jun-2020 08:35:05 npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
error 26-Jun-2020 08:35:05 npm ERR! errno 1
error 26-Jun-2020 08:35:05 npm ERR! node-sass@4.9.3 postinstall: `node scripts/build.js`
error 26-Jun-2020 08:35:05 npm ERR! Exit status 1
error 26-Jun-2020 08:35:05 npm ERR!
error 26-Jun-2020 08:35:05 npm ERR! Failed at the node-sass@4.9.3 postinstall script.
error 26-Jun-2020 08:35:05 npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
(OK I know that’s not your fault, npm
.) Here is my package.json
:
{
"devDependencies": {
"gulp": "^3.9.0",
"gulp-concat": "^2.6.0",
"gulp-minify-css": "^1.2.4",
"gulp-rename": "^1.2.2",
"gulp-sass": "^4.0.2",
"gulp-sourcemaps": "*"
}
}
😐 node-sass
I noticed that should be something wrong with node-sass
, which being used in gulp-sass
. I met this issues before and from my experience, node-sass
will try to download the corresponding prebuilt binary base on your OS or build it locally using python
, MSBuild
, etc… (That’s why you will met lots of questions in Stack Overflow asking python2
not found when installing node-sass
, what’s wrong with my node-sass
or I got a panic attack when dealing with node-sass
should I consult a developer or a doctor first? ).
For this node-sass
issue, you can try to run this on Windows:
npm install --global --production windows-build-tools
npm install node-gyp
Or try to delete package-lock.json
and node_modules
first and do a npm install
if you can install all packages successfully on let say Mac OS but failed on Windows.
👆Those tricks saved me most of the time.
I just want to get my css files back and you told me I have to install this and that and download node npm python ms build tools some prebuilt binaries? Are you serious, node-sass?
😑 ReferenceError: primordials is not defined
After the node-sass
issue was solved, the build server ran the build jobs again and got these errors:
error 26-Jun-2020 08:53:06 fs.js:35
error 26-Jun-2020 08:53:06 } = primordials;
error 26-Jun-2020 08:53:06 ^
error 26-Jun-2020 08:53:06
error 26-Jun-2020 08:53:06 ReferenceError: primordials is not defined
error 26-Jun-2020 08:53:06 at fs.js:35:5
## ( blah blah blah ) ##
error 26-Jun-2020 08:53:06 at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1138:30)
error 26-Jun-2020 08:53:06 at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1158:10)
error 26-Jun-2020 08:53:06 at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:986:32)
error 26-Jun-2020 08:53:06 at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:879:14)
error 26-Jun-2020 08:53:06 at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1026:19)
error 26-Jun-2020 08:53:06 at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:72:18)
This answer from Stack Overflow states that it is due to Node.js v12 does not compatible with Gulp v3 and you need to upgrade Gulp to v4. I know I should do that but I also know that I will meet the Did you forget to signal async completion? issue which also will cause an epic fail of the build unless I re-write the gulp tasks.
I don’t want to change my gulpfile.js
and I don’t want to upgrade gulp
. Not now. That’s why I started searching for a solution without changing any configurations of the build server as well as the gulp setup in the project.
😀 Solution: adding a npm-shrinkwrap.json
Eventually I found a solution on how to handle this “Gulp VS Node” situation. What we need is create a npm-shrinkwrap.json
file under the same directory with package.json
.
The content of the json file:
{
"dependencies": {
"graceful-fs": {
"version": "4.2.3"
}
}
}
After that I can build the project and finish all the gulp tasks without errors 🎉.
🤔 So, what’s going on?
From the npm’s official documentation on the npm-shrinkwrap
command:
This command repurposes package-lock.json into a publishable npm-shrinkwrap.json or simply creates a new one. The file created and updated by this command will then take precedence over any other existing or future package-lock.json files.
And from the documentation on the npm-shrinkwrap.json
:
… Additionally, if both
package-lock.json
andnpm-shrinkwrap.json
are present in a package root,package-lock.json
will be ignored in favor of this file.
In other words, this file has a higher priority then package-lock.json
. However, why this file can solve the build error?
Thefs
module
Node’s fs
module got some changes since v11.15 which cause the graceful-fs@^3.0.0
package does not work anymore. Unfortunately, gulp@3.9.1
depends on graceful-fs@^3.0.0
. As a result, running the gulp tasks on Node.js v12 will cause the primordials is not defined
error.
The fix
After we added the npm-shrinkwrap.json
, from my understanding it locked down the version of package(s) used by the execution environment to the version stated in that file (and ignore the setup in package-lock.json
.In the above case, the npm-shrinkwrap.json
tells Node.js 12 use graceful-fs@4.2.3
instead of graceful-fs@^3.0.0
. This combination works. Meanwhile, the gulp
package will still reference to the package.json
and package-lock.json
file and use the graceful-fs@^3.0.0
package. This combination also works.
🎯 Conclusion
I got some build errors when using gulp@^3.9.0
and gulp-sass
under Node.js 12. After I delete the package-lock.json
and re-run npm install
, the sass problem solved. Next, I added a npm-shrinkwrap.json
to (temporarily) solve the incompatable issue with old gulp running on new Node.js.
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