[BUG] NPM doesn't allow me to 'npm i' on even slightly weak network connections

okirpane commented 2 years ago

Is there an existing issue for this?

[X] I have searched the existing issues

This issue exists in the latest npm version

[X] I am using the latest npm

Current Behavior

When I run npm i on my computer (Macbook Pro 2020) with a 5G internet connection that drops packages every now and then, the command hangs at larger packages. Basically:

I run npm i
It downloads a few packages
It reaches a package that is slightly big
Then just... stops.
I have to then CTRL+C in the terminal to quit the process and find a more consistent network connection.

Expected Behavior

I would expect my package manager to at least work when my connection wavers a little. The fact that NPM just fails completely is dissapointing.

Steps To Reproduce

Connect to a slightly unstable network connection
Start a project with some node_modules
Run npm i
Observe that it hangs when it reaches a large package.

Environment

npm: npm 8.3.0
Node.js: Node.js v16.11.0
OS Name: MacOS Monterey 12.2.1
System Model Name: Macbook Pro 2020

npm config:


; "builtin" config from /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/npm/npmrc

prefix = "/opt/homebrew"

; "project" config from /Users/okirp/Desktop/ojasvin/.npmrc

engine-strict = true

; node bin location = /opt/homebrew/Cellar/node/16.11.0/bin/node ; cwd = /Users/okirp/Desktop/ojasvin ; HOME = /Users/okirp ; Run npm config ls -l to show all defaults.

nlf commented 2 years ago

it's likely what's happening here is a request is timing out, so we're retrying it. by default we'll retry the same package 2 times after the initial failure, so i would expect to see what appears to be npm hanging for the time it takes 3 requests to timeout which is ~15 minutes by default. if you npm i --fetch-timeout=60000 it'll reduce the overall failure time to ~3 minutes, though based on the information provided all that's really going to do is get you to an error quicker.

i'm curious, how large of a package are you seeing this failure with? if you download the package tarball outside of npm (i.e. curl or wget) how long does it take to transfer?

spotlesscoder commented 5 months ago

this is extremely annoying. Happened to me in train again yesterday 2 retries as default is not enough. Sometimes you're offline on train for 5 minutes or more The default retries should be like 10 or so Also, large packages should be fetched in chunks and the chunks should be retried individually

npm / cli