Building theia with yarn fails with ECONNRESET during electron build in [5/5] Building Fresh Packages...

[Penguin4Hire]

I am new to eclipse theia and somewhat new to nodejs. I had several issues leading up to this one but I was able to resolve them. Most were proxy (i'm behind a corporate firewall) issues but again they should be fixed now. For the life of me though, I cannot get past the below error.

username@hostname /build/theia2 (master) $ yarn
yarn install v1.22.22
$ node-gyp install
gyp info it worked if it ends with ok
gyp info using node-gyp@9.4.1
gyp info using node@21.7.3 | linux | x64
gyp http GET https://nodejs.org/download/release/v21.7.3/node-v21.7.3-headers.tar.gz
gyp http 200 https://nodejs.org/download/release/v21.7.3/node-v21.7.3-headers.tar.gz
gyp http GET https://nodejs.org/download/release/v21.7.3/SHASUMS256.txt
gyp http 200 https://nodejs.org/download/release/v21.7.3/SHASUMS256.txt
undefined
gyp info ok 
[1/5] Validating package.json...
[2/5] Resolving packages...
[3/5] Fetching packages...
warning plugin-a@1.48.0: The engine "vscode" appears to be invalid.
warning plugin-b@1.48.0: The engine "vscode" appears to be invalid.
warning plugin-gotd@1.48.0: The engine "vscode" appears to be invalid.
[4/5] Linking dependencies...
warning " > @theia/electron@1.48.0" has unmet peer dependency "electron@^23.2.4".
warning "workspace-aggregator-6e302495-4eb5-4863-b161-4d30e931831b > @theia/messages > react-perfect-scrollbar@1.5.8" has unmet peer dependency "react@>=16.3.3".
warning "workspace-aggregator-6e302495-4eb5-4863-b161-4d30e931831b > @theia/messages > react-perfect-scrollbar@1.5.8" has unmet peer dependency "react-dom@>=16.3.3".
warning "workspace-aggregator-6e302495-4eb5-4863-b161-4d30e931831b > @theia/preview > markdown-it-anchor@5.0.2" has unmet peer dependency "markdown-it@^8.4.1".
warning "workspace-aggregator-6e302495-4eb5-4863-b161-4d30e931831b > @theia/process > node-pty@0.11.0-beta17" has incorrect peer dependency "node-gyp@^8.3.0".
warning "workspace-aggregator-6e302495-4eb5-4863-b161-4d30e931831b > @theia/scm > react-autosize-textarea@7.1.0" has unmet peer dependency "react@^0.14.0 || ^15.0.0 || ^16.0.0".
warning "workspace-aggregator-6e302495-4eb5-4863-b161-4d30e931831b > @theia/scm > react-autosize-textarea@7.1.0" has unmet peer dependency "react-dom@^0.14.0 || ^15.0.0 || ^16.0.0".
[5/5] Building fresh packages...
[17/18] ⠠ electron
[11/18] ⠠ keytar
[16/18] ⠐ cpu-features
[15/18] ⠐ find-git-repositories
error /build/theia2/node_modules/electron: Command failed.
Exit code: 1
Command: node install.js
Arguments: 
Directory: /build/theia2/node_modules/electron
Output:
RequestError: read ECONNRESET
    at ClientRequest.<anonymous> (/build/theia2/node_modules/got/dist/source/core/index.js:970:111)
    at Object.onceWrapper (node:events:634:26)
    at ClientRequest.emit (node:events:531:35)
    at origin.emit (/build/theia2/node_modules/@szmarczak/http-timer/dist/source/index.js:43:20)
    at TLSSocket.socketErrorListener (node:_http_client:500:9)
    at TLSSocket.emit (node:events:519:28)
    at emitErrorNT (node:internal/streams/destroy:169:8)

I also tried to install electron globally via npm i electron -g and that fails with a ECONNRESET as well. I can't seem to get past this first build step. I followed the same instructions on my personal machine and I was able to get theia to build and run completely so electron must be available and my corporate configuration must still be amiss in some way. I've googled for theia help and just general npm/nodejs help on this topic and nothing has worked so far. I am hoping someone can provide the missing key or help me debug this. Thanks!

My environment details:

OS: Linux (RHEL 9)

> npm ping
npm notice PING http://registry.npmjs.org/
npm notice PONG 1698ms

> yarn --version
1.22.22

>npm --version
10.5.0

>node --version
v20.12.2

> npm config list
https-proxy = "http://proxy:port" 
proxy = "http://proxy:port" 
registry = "http://registry.npmjs.org/" 
strict-ssl = false

; node bin location = /path/to/bin/node
; node version = v20.12.2
; npm local prefix = /build/theia2
; npm version = 10.5.0
; cwd = /build/theia2
; HOME = /home/path
; Run `npm config ls -l` to show all defaults.

> python3 --version
Python 3.9.18

Paths and urls are scrubbed but are believed to be correct

[Penguin4Hire]

I found a workaround. After peeking at node_modules/electron/install.js I noticed it checks for definition of ELECTRON_SKIP_BINARY_DOWNLOAD. So I ran ELECTRON_SKIP_BINARY_DOWNLOAD=1 yarn and all subsequent build steps worked. However, this unblocks me only b/c theia has a browser-based deployment as well as electron-based. The electron build, namely yarn electron build does not work which makes sense. I still need to understand why the ECONNRESET is happening b/c I believe this is keeping the electron build from completing.

[msujew]

Hey @Penguin4Hire,

looking at Electron's documentation, it seems like their downloader uses special env variables for the proxy values. See here. In particular, it expects ELECTRON_GET_USE_PROXY among others to be set.

[Penguin4Hire]

This looks promising, but I get a different error now, see below. I defined the following env vars. I know http_proxy is valid because I use that for curl, git, and several other things. This appears to be a known issue with electron/get, see here. Could theia be using an older/broken version?

ELECTRON_GET_USE_PROXY=1
GLOBAL_AGENT_HTTP_PROXY=$http_proxy

error /build/theia/node_modules/electron: Command failed.
Exit code: 1
Command: node install.js
Arguments: 
Directory: /build/theia/node_modules/electron
Output:
RequestError: Unsupported `GLOBAL_AGENT.HTTP_PROXY` configuration value: URL protocol must be "http:".
    at Request._makeRequest (/build/theia/node_modules/got/dist/source/core/index.js:1191:19)
    at parseProxyUrl (/build/theia/node_modules/global-agent/dist/utilities/parseProxyUrl.js:24:11)
    at BoundHttpsProxyAgent.getUrlProxy (/build/theia/node_modules/global-agent/dist/factories/createGlobalProxyAgent.js:108:43)
    at BoundHttpsProxyAgent.addRequest (/build/theia/node_modules/global-agent/dist/classes/Agent.js:62:24)
    at new ClientRequest (node:_http_client:334:16)
    at request (node:https:379:10)

[msujew]

We are in the process of upgrading Theia to the latest version of Electron, see #13580. Ideally, that should fix your issue.