Commands that involve npm are taking too long when behind proxy

[n0v1]

Please, provide the details below:

Did you verify this is a real problem by searching the NativeScript Forum and the other open issues in this repo?

yes

Tell us about the problem

When you are behind a corporate proxy and you execute NativeScript CLI commands like tns doctor that in turn executes npm commands like npm -v in a child process, those commands take far too long to finish. tns doctor for example runs for 3 minutes until the results are shown.

This seems to happen on Windows systems only.

Debugging showed that the cause of this problem is the update check feature that was introduced in npm 4.4.0. The update-notifier package that is used for this does not support proxies. It spawns a deferred child process that prevents the parent process (the one that executes npm -v) from closing on some platforms.

See this call in nativescript-doctor sys-info: https://github.com/NativeScript/nativescript-doctor/blob/81fe42a2cd63812b138bcd579ecbb384d83bcf0d/lib/sys-info.ts#L99

The callback here will be called only after the process closes. On windows the close event of this child process will be fired after the update check process is completed. As it does not support proxies, it times out after 3 minutes with a unhandled promise rejection (that does not hit the surface) and so the script execution halts here for this 3 minutes.

This problem occurs with all npm version from 4.4.0 up.

A workaround could be to set the environment variable NO_UPDATE_NOTIFIER for the CLI process (and thus for all child processes it spawns). See package description.

Please provide the following version numbers that your issue occurs with:

• CLI: 4.1.0
• Cross-platform modules: 3.4.1
• Runtime(s): tns-android@4.1.2
• Plugin(s): nativescript-barcodescanner, nativescript-webview-interface, nativescript-vue

Please tell us how to recreate the issue in as much detail as possible.

Please see this repository

Is there code involved? If so, please share the minimal amount of code needed to recreate the problem.

const childProcess = require('child_process')

const options = {
  timeout: 5000,
  // env: {
  //   NO_UPDATE_NOTIFIER: true
  // }
}

console.log(new Date(Date.now()).toLocaleString(), '- START')
console.time('childProcess.exec')

const child = childProcess.exec('npm --version', options, (err) => {
  console.timeEnd('childProcess.exec')
  if (err) {
    console.error(`Error: ${err}`)
    return
  }
})

child.stdout.on('data', (data) => {
  console.log(new Date(Date.now()).toLocaleString(), '- DATA -', 'npm version:', data.split('\n')[0])
})

child.on('error', (err) => {
  console.log(new Date(Date.now()).toLocaleString(), '- ERROR -', err)
})

child.on('exit', (code) => {
  console.log(new Date(Date.now()).toLocaleString(), '- EXIT -', code)
  // const activeHandles = process._getActiveHandles()
  // const activeRequests = process._getActiveRequests()
  // console.log('active handles:', activeHandles.length, 'active requests:', activeRequests.length)
})

child.on('close', (code) => {
  clearInterval(intervalId)
  console.log(new Date(Date.now()).toLocaleString(), '- CLOSE -', code)
})

Expected output:

2018-6-13 13:15:32 - START
2018-6-13 13:15:33 - DATA - npm version: 5.6.0
2018-6-13 13:15:33 - EXIT - 0
childProcess.exec: 934.978ms
2018-6-13 13:15:37 - CLOSE - 0

Actual output without an expicit timeout:

2018-6-13 13:15:32 - START
2018-6-13 13:15:33 - DATA - npm version: 5.6.0
2018-6-13 13:15:33 - EXIT - 0
childProcess.exec: 189416.095ms
2018-6-13 13:18:31 - CLOSE - 0

Actual output with an timeout of 10 seconds:

2018-6-13 10:32:34 - START
2018-6-13 10:32:35 - DATA - npm version: 5.6.0
2018-6-13 10:32:35 - EXIT - 0
childProcess.exec: 10019.768ms
2018-6-13 10:32:43 - CLOSE - 0

Actual output equals expected output when adding environment variable NO_UPDATE_NOTIFIER to the exec options.

Related issues

• npm --version takes 3 minutes to complete when run in child process and behind corporate proxy npm/npm#20979

[n0v1]

npm 6.2 seems to include an option to disabled the update check via --no-update-notifier or --update-notifier=false.
See npm/npm#20750 and https://npm.community/t/npm-side-config-for-suppressing-update-notifier/75/5

[rosen-vladimirov]

Hey @n0v1 ,
Have you set the npm proxy before executing these commands - by default npm does not respect the system proxy, so you have to set it manually:

npm config set proxy <your proxy url>
npm config set https-proxy <your proxy url>

For example:

npm config set proxy http://localhost:8888
npm config set https-proxy http://localhost:8888

[n0v1]

Yes, I've set the npm proxy settings from day one. npm works fine when using it "normally". Disabling the update check by setting the environment variable NO_UPDATE_NOTIFIER fixes the problem for me. It persists otherwise.

[rosen-vladimirov]

Okay, thanks for the information. As the issue is related to npm itself not NativeScript specifically, I'm closing it.
Thanks a lot for sharing the workaround!