ffi-napi issue on windows while installation

[RinkalBhojani]

I am facing below issue on my windows machine while installation.

@TimoGlastra @berendsliedrecht @genaris - Do you have any idea for this?

It fails to build 'ffi-napi' related package.

PS D:\Project\credo-ts> pnpm install
Scope: all 19 workspace projects
Lockfile is up to date, resolution step is skipped
Packages: +1646
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Progress: resolved 1646, reused 1646, downloaded 0, added 0, done
node_modules/.pnpm/@mattrglobal+node-bbs-signatures@0.18.1/node_modules/@mattrglobal/node-bbs-signatnode_modules/.pnpm/@mattrglobal+node-bbs-signatures@0.18.1/node_modules/@mattrglobal/node-bbs-signatures: Running install script, failed in 1.5s (skipped as optional)
node_modules/.pnpm/@2060.io+ffi-napi@4.0.9/node_modules/@2060.io/ffi-napi: Running install script, failed in 6s
.../node_modules/@2060.io/ffi-napi install$ node-gyp-build
│ D:\Project\credo-ts\node_modules.pnpm@2060.io+ffi-napi@4.0.9\node_modules@2060.io\ffi-napi>i…
│ gyp info it worked if it ends with ok
│ gyp info using node-gyp@10.1.0
│ gyp info using node@18.20.4 | win32 | x64
│ gyp info find Python using Python version 3.12.6 found at "C:\Users\Rinkal Bhojani\AppData\Loca…
│ gyp info find VS using VS2022 (17.11.35303.130) found at:
│ gyp info find VS "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community"
│ gyp info find VS run with --verbose for detailed information
│ gyp info spawn C:\Users\Rinkal Bhojani\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python312\python.exe
│ gyp info spawn args [
│ gyp info spawn args 'C:\Users\Rinkal Bhojani\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\pnpm\dist…
│ gyp info spawn args 'binding.gyp',
│ gyp info spawn args '-f',
│ gyp info spawn args 'msvs',
│ gyp info spawn args '-I',
│ gyp info spawn args 'D:\Project\credo-ts\node_modules\.pnpm\@2060.io+ffi-napi@4.0.9\node_…
│ gyp info spawn args '-I',
│ gyp info spawn args 'C:\Users\Rinkal Bhojani\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\pnpm\dist…
│ gyp info spawn args '-I',
│ gyp info spawn args 'C:\Users\Rinkal Bhojani\AppData\Local\node-gyp\Cache\18.20.4\inclu…
│ gyp info spawn args '-Dlibrary=shared_library',
│ gyp info spawn args '-Dvisibility=default',
│ gyp info spawn args '-Dnode_root_dir=C:\Users\Rinkal Bhojani\AppData\Local\node-gyp\Cache…
│ gyp info spawn args '-Dnode_gyp_dir=C:\Users\Rinkal Bhojani\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modu…
│ gyp info spawn args '-Dnode_lib_file=C:\\Users\\Rinkal Bhojani\\AppData\\Local\\node-…
│ gyp info spawn args '-Dmodule_root_dir=D:\Project\credo-ts\node_modules\.pnpm\@2060.io+ffi…
│ gyp info spawn args '-Dnode_engine=v8',
│ gyp info spawn args '--depth=.',
│ gyp info spawn args '--no-parallel',
│ gyp info spawn args '--generator-output',
│ gyp info spawn args 'D:\Project\credo-ts\node_modules\.pnpm\@2060.io+ffi-napi@4.0.9\node_…
│ gyp info spawn args '-Goutput_dir=.'
│ gyp info spawn args ]
│ gyp info spawn C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin\MSBu…
│ gyp info spawn args [
│ gyp info spawn args 'build\binding.sln',
│ gyp info spawn args '/clp:Verbosity=minimal',
│ gyp info spawn args '/nologo',
│ gyp info spawn args '/p:Configuration=Release;Platform=x64'
│ gyp info spawn args ]
│ nothing.c
│ nothing.vcxproj -> D:\Project\credo-ts\node_modules.pnpm@2060.io+ffi-napi@4.0.9\node_module…
│ Preprocessing assembly file ......\deps\libffi\src\x86\win64_intel.preasm
│ '"call"' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
│ operable program or batch file.
│ D:\Project\credo-ts\node_modules.pnpm@2060.io+ffi-napi@4.0.9\node_modules@2060.io\ffi-napi\b…
│ gyp ERR! build error
│ gyp ERR! stack Error: `C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\MSBuild\Current\…
│ gyp ERR! stack at ChildProcess. (C:\Users\Rinkal Bhojani\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_mo…
│ gyp ERR! stack at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:517:28)
│ gyp ERR! stack at ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:292:12)
│ gyp ERR! System Windows_NT 10.0.19045
│ gyp ERR! command "C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe" "C:\Users\Rinkal Bhojani\AppData\Roa…
│ gyp ERR! cwd D:\Project\credo-ts\node_modules.pnpm@2060.io+ffi-napi@4.0.9\node_modules@2060.…
│ gyp ERR! node -v v18.20.4
│ gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v10.1.0
│ gyp ERR! not ok
└─ Failed in 6s at D:\Project\credo-ts\node_modules.pnpm@2060.io+ffi-napi@4.0.9\node_modules@2060.io\ffi-napi
 ELIFECYCLE  Command failed with exit code 1.

Am I missing something or needs to changed

[genaris]

Maybe this is related to the comment from @btsimonh in nodejs/node#52240 (comment). I'll check as soon as I can get a Windows machine, but in the meantime probably it may work for you if you force node-gyp-build to version 4.8.2, i.e. add it to package.json's resolutions field:

resolutions: {
...
"node-gyp-build": "4.8.2",
...
}

[RinkalBhojani]

resolutions: { "node-gyp-build": "4.8.2" }

@genaris - I tried this but got the same error.

[btsimonh]

'"call"' is not recognized as an internal or external command,

see the mods I mention in node-ffi-napi/node-ffi-napi#270 - the one about libffi.gyp.

[RinkalBhojani]

@genaris @btsimonh - I tried steps given in node-ffi-napi/node-ffi-napi#270 . Still I am getting same error.

I tried these node version v18.19.0 , v20.11.1, v22.11.0.

Could you please help me out with detailed steps to follow?

[btsimonh]

Hi @RinkalBhojani,

pls try these repos:
"ref-napi": "https://github.com/btsimonh/ref-napi.git",
"ref-array-di": "^1.2.2",
"ref-struct-di": "^1.1.1",
"ffi-napi": "https://github.com/btsimonh/node-ffi-napi.git",

for me, this set is working together for node 22.10.0, and should be ok with 18, 20, 22. It's not tested on <= 16, or on odd numbered node.
One test failed for ff-napi, involving a nested 30,000 calls. Once reduced to 15,000, the test is passing.

The changes are a combination of all the resources I could find, plus adapting to use git actions over appveyer. Feel free to use those, or fork them. ffi-napi is a fork of @cclauss version. It include prebuilds for linux, windows, macos x64 macos arm64.
I have yet to heavily test them in real environments, but this will be happening soon, as I do need it to work on all those platforms.
It does install on windows without needing to build, and it did run my initial tests (accessing windows APIs for an updated version of https://github.com/btsimonh/node-windows-root-certs).

br,
Simon

[ChandMandru]

Is there any progress on this ? Trying to follow the docs strictly results in this error, making it impossible to get a base project going.

[cclauss]

Use https://koffi.dev/ and/or node-ffi-rs instead of the unmaintained and broken node-ffi as discussed in

• PLEASE ARCHIVE THIS REPO -- The code fails on modern Node.js node-ffi-napi/node-ffi-napi#269

[btsimonh]

for us, the above repos I mention are working for other projects.
EXCEPT. For a pointer type, a void* pointer is a buffer with an address, and is of size 1 (because Buffer with size zero now does not retain it's address?).
When a windows call returns an hWnd, for example, this is a void*, but 'points' to an unavailable address.
I've just patched "https://github.com/btsimonh/ref-napi.git" to not dies if the pointer is inspected or toString() called. But you can still kill node by accessing hWnd[0].
There is a PR which may address this, but it's a major one, and the notes here node-ffi-napi/ref-napi#64 are complex. @TimothyJones ?
I'll be looking into further mods to avoid the issue, but it is a complex thing....

[TimothyJones]

Thanks for the tag. We ended up giving up and rolling our own custom code using NAPI directly, since we didn't need all the features of the linked repos.

You can see what we did here, with the javascript side of it here. However, I've stepped down from that project to focus on others, so I haven't got much more information for you beyond what you can see in the code, I'm afraid.

[ChandMandru]

@cclauss forgive me if this is silly, but given that the error occurs in the step of installing dependencies where ffi-napi fails, how would one replace that given component ? the same error occurs when downloading the credo-ts repo and trying to install dependencies via "pnpm i".

[cclauss]

It sounds like replacing node-ffi-napi is necessary but not sufficient for solving all problems.

A replacement library can be bug-for-bug compatible with the original library for some use cases.

[ChandMandru]

So theres no sufficient solution to this issue which can be listed in the docs or implemented by the authors of this repository ? this seems to fail on all windows machines making it unusable with no proper workaround or fix ?

[cclauss]

Unfortunately, I do not have the knowledge required to suggest a fix.

You might pin this issue to encourage community collaboration on fixing it.

• https://docs.github.com/en/issues/tracking-your-work-with-issues/administering-issues/pinning-an-issue-to-your-repository