Unable to pull NPM dependencies while installing empirica on Windows

[wrahool]

All the dependencies (latest Node.js, chocolatey, metoer) are installed. Yet I get this error:

C:\...\empirica>npx create-empirica-app my-experiment

Creating a new Empirica app in C:\...\empirica\my-experiment.

Setting up App template.

Pulling NPM dependencies.


> [email protected] install C:\...\empirica\my-experiment\node_modules\bcrypt
> node-pre-gyp install --fallback-to-build

node-pre-gyp WARN Using request for node-pre-gyp https download
node-pre-gyp WARN Tried to download(404): https://github.com/kelektiv/node.bcrypt.js/releases/download/v3.0.3/bcrypt_lib-v3.0.3-node-v57-win32-x64-unknown.tar.gz
node-pre-gyp WARN Pre-built binaries not found for [email protected] and [email protected] (node-v57 ABI, unknown) (falling back to source compile with node-gyp)
Building the projects in this solution one at a time. To enable parallel build, please add the "/m" switch.
C:\...\empirica\my-experiment\node_modules\bcrypt\build\bcrypt_lib.vcxproj(20,3): error MSB40
19: The imported project "C:\Microsoft.Cpp.Default.props" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declarat
ion is correct, and that the file exists on disk.
gyp ERR! build error
gyp ERR! stack Error: `C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\msbuild.exe` failed with exit code: 1
gyp ERR! stack     at ChildProcess.onExit (C:\..\AppData\Local\.meteor\packages\meteor-tool\1.8.1\mt-os.windows.x86_64\dev_bundle\lib\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\lib\build.js:262:23)
gyp ERR! stack     at emitTwo (events.js:126:13)
gyp ERR! stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:214:7)
gyp ERR! stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:198:12)
gyp ERR! System Windows_NT 10.0.17134
gyp ERR! command "C:\\..\\AppData\\Local\\.meteor\\packages\\meteor-tool\\1.8.1\\mt-os.windows.x86_64\\dev_bundle\\bin\\node.exe" "C:\\..\\AppData\\Local\\.meteor\\packages\\meteor-tool\\1.8.1\\mt-os.windows.x86_64\\dev_bundle\\lib\\node_modules\\npm\\node_modules\\node-gyp\\bin\\node-gyp.js" "build" "--fallback-to-build" "--module=C:\\.....\\empirica\\my-experiment\\node_modules\\bcrypt\\lib\\binding\\bcrypt_lib.node" "--module_name=bcrypt_lib" "--module_path=C:\\...\\empirica\\my-experiment\\node_modules\\bcrypt\\lib\\binding" "--napi_version=3" "--node_abi_napi=napi"
gyp ERR! cwd C:\....\empirica\my-experiment\node_modules\bcrypt
gyp ERR! node -v v8.15.1
gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v3.8.0
gyp ERR! not ok
node-pre-gyp ERR! build error
node-pre-gyp ERR! stack Error: Failed to execute 'C:\..\AppData\Local\.meteor\packages\meteor-tool\1.8.1\mt-os.windows.x86_64\dev_bundle\bin\node.exe C:\..\AppData\Local\.meteor\packages\meteor-tool\1.8.1\mt-os.windows.x86_64\dev_bundle\lib\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js build --fallback-to-build --module=C:\..\Documents\Work\empirica\my-experiment\node_modules\bcrypt\lib\binding\bcrypt_lib.node --module_name=bcrypt_lib --module_path=C:..\Documents\Work\empirica\my-experiment\node_modules\bcrypt\lib\binding --napi_version=3 --node_abi_napi=napi' (1)
node-pre-gyp ERR! stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (C:\..\AppData\Local\.meteor\packages\meteor-tool\1.8.1\mt-os.windows.x86_64\dev_bundle\lib\node_modules\node-pre-gyp\lib\util\compile.js:83:29)
node-pre-gyp ERR! stack     at emitTwo (events.js:126:13)
node-pre-gyp ERR! stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:214:7)
node-pre-gyp ERR! stack     at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:915:16)
node-pre-gyp ERR! stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:209:5)
node-pre-gyp ERR! System Windows_NT 10.0.17134
node-pre-gyp ERR! command "C:\\..\\AppData\\Local\\.meteor\\packages\\meteor-tool\\1.8.1\\mt-os.windows.x86_64\\dev_bundle\\bin\\node.exe" "C:\\..\\AppData\\Local\\.meteor\\packages\\meteor-tool\\1.8.1\\mt-os.windows.x86_64\\dev_bundle\\lib\\node_modules\\node-pre-gyp\\bin\\node-pre-gyp" "install" "--fallback-to-build"
node-pre-gyp ERR! cwd C:\......\empirica\my-experiment\node_modules\bcrypt
node-pre-gyp ERR! node -v v8.15.1
node-pre-gyp ERR! node-pre-gyp -v v0.10.3
node-pre-gyp ERR! not ok
Failed to execute 'C:\...\AppData\Local\.meteor\packages\meteor-tool\1.8.1\mt-os.windows.x86_64\dev_bundle\bin\node.exe C:\...\AppData\Local\.meteor\packages\meteor-tool\1.8.1\mt-os.windows.x86_64\dev_bundle\lib\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js build --fallback-to-build --module=C:\....\empirica\my-experiment\node_modules\bcrypt\lib\binding\bcrypt_lib.node --module_name=bcrypt_lib --module_path=C:\......\empirica\my-experiment\node_modules\bcrypt\lib\binding --napi_version=3 --node_abi_napi=napi' (1)
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! [email protected] install: `node-pre-gyp install --fallback-to-build`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] install script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\..\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_logs\2019-06-20T02_33_28_003Z-debug.log


Could not pull NPM dependencies

[wrahool]

As it was clear that the issue was with the installation of bcrypt, I tried to install that first. That required me to first install windows-build-tools, following directions here by running

npm install --global --production windows-build-tools

That then ran into an error. Found out here, that there's some problem with the latest version of the windows-build-tool. So, the workaround was installing the version 4.0.0 instead, which was

npm install --global --production [email protected]

and then running

npm install -g --production windows-build-tools

This does seem to have resolved the original issue. I don't get all those error messages, and I see a Happy experimenting! prompt when I create a new experiment (npx create-empirica-app my-experiment).

However, one caveat is that windows-build-tools has installed python2.7 over python3.6 on my windows machine.

[npaton]

@wrahool Thank you very much for taking the time to share your solution here, this is will come in handy for people encountering this same issue. I will try to see if there is a way for us to avoid this problem in the first place, but from the description it does look like a dependency issue that might be out of our reach for now. In any case, many thanks!