Getting compilation errors during dependency setup
I’m working on setting up a local development environment for my project on macOS. When I try to install the required packages, the process fails during the compilation of native modules.
The specific error occurs when trying to build a package that requires C++ compilation tools:
npm ERR! error installing [email protected]
> [email protected] preinstall /Users/developer/Projects/myapp/node_modules/webcontext
> node-gyp rebuild
Checking for program g++ or c++ : not found
error: could not configure a cxx compiler!
npm ERR! [email protected] preinstall: `node-gyp rebuild`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] preinstall script.
I have Xcode installed on my machine, but it seems like the build tools aren’t being detected properly. Most solutions I found online are for Windows environments, but I’m running macOS.
Has anyone encountered similar compilation issues when setting up Node.js projects? What’s the proper way to ensure all build dependencies are available?
Same thing happened to me during a macOS upgrade. The system wiped my command line tools config even though Xcode was still there. You’ll need to fix the SDK path after installing the tools. Run xcrun --show-sdk-path to check your setup - if it errors out, use sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer. I also had to clear npm cache with npm cache clean --force before reinstalling packages. Everything compiled fine once I set the right developer directory path.
I faced a similar issue while working with Node.js on macOS. Even if Xcode is installed, the command line tools may not be configured correctly. Start by running xcode-select --install to ensure the tools are installed. After that, verify your compilers using gcc --version and g++ --version. If problems persist, sudo xcode-select --reset can help realign the tool paths. This process resolved my node-gyp problems and everything has functioned smoothly since.
Same issue here last week! Run sudo xcodebuild -license accept first - Xcode license might not be accepted even though it’s installed. Also double-check your node version since some packages are super picky about compatibility. Fixed it for me once I accepted the license.