Windows npm install node-gyp error: libxslt command failed

Question

For the last few days I've been trying to get node/npm installed on my Windows 10 VM and I've tried everything I found with no success.

I followed the node-gyp setup instructions for Windows which say to install Python3.7. The npm microsoft-build-tools are now deprecated and installed with the microsoft installer (which I used). i also installed the tool through visual studio, and tried npm config set msvs_version 2015 -g to try both 2015/2017. I have node -v v16.13.1 , node-gyp -v v8.4.1 , npm 8.2 . Everytime I try npm install I just keep getting the same stacktrace

 C:\Users\dperrone1\Desktop\project\node_modules\libxslt
npm ERR! command failed

 LINK : fatal error LNK1181: cannot open input file 'C:\Users\dperrone1\Desktop\project\node_modules\node1-libxmljsmt-myh\build\Release\xmljs-myh.lib' [C:\Users\dperrone1\Desktop\project\node_modules\libxslt\build\node-libxslt.vcxproj]

npm ERR! gyp info find Python using Python version 3.10.1 found 

 gyp info find VS using VS2017 (15.9.28307.1745) found at:
npm ERR! gyp info find VS "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools"

npm ERR! gyp ERR! stack Error: `C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\MSBuild.exe` failed with exit code: 1

"C:\\Users\\dperrone1\\AppData\\Roaming\\npm\\node_modules\\npm\\node_modules\\node-gyp\\bin\\node-gyp.js" "rebuild"
npm ERR! gyp ERR! cwd C:\Users\dperrone1\Desktop\project\node_modules\libxslt

none of the solutions around npm rebuild/deleting node_modules work, because after npm install fails it wipes away the node_modules it added. any suggestions please? anyway to use an alternative library?

Fixed: the problem turned out not to be the build tools themselves, but the modules the build tools were trying to build. I remove the dependencies libxslt , xml , xml-parser , xml2js , and xmltojson . The core issue was libxslt and for some reason npm was trying to find a non existent fork of this module. I had the same issues trying to install this on WSL, but removing those packages fixes it all around

Answer 1

Fixed: the problem turned out not to be the build tools themselves, but the modules the build tools were trying to build. I remove the dependencies libxslt, xml, xml-parser, xml2js, and xmltojson. The core issue was libxslt and for some reason npm was trying to find a non existent fork of this module. I had the same issues trying to install this on WSL, but removing those packages fixes it all around

Answer 2

Problem is python and your VS tools. On windows worked for me:

• Uninstall node.js

• Uninstall python

• Uninstall VS build tools

• Clear registry Then reboot your machine and try install with following ordering:

• 1. Install python set executable path
• 2. Install VS build tools (latest)
• 3. Install node.js (Latest LTS version) Be carefully angular CLI and some other stuff does not work with latest non LTS node.js

Then reboot your machine. Try to run npm install

Also try to not use npm install from desktop.

It's preferable to post your package json.

Answer 3

This problem has been bothering me, but I put node JS version down to 12.13.0 to solve the headache