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How to fix an issue installing Node `canvas` on macOS

How to fix a node-pre-gyp install issue installing the Node.js canvas library on macOS

I wanted to use the Node.js canvas NPM package but running npm install canvas failed with messages like this:

npm ERR! code 1
npm ERR! path /Users/flaviocopes/dev/old/generate-images-posts/node_modules/canvas
npm ERR! command failed
npm ERR! command sh -c node-pre-gyp install --fallback-to-build
npm ERR! Failed to execute '/opt/homebrew/Cellar/node@16/16.14.2/bin/node /opt/homebrew/Cellar/node@16/16.14.2/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js configure --fallback-to-build --module=/Users/flaviocopes/dev/old/generate-images-posts/node_modules/canvas/build/Release/canvas.node --module_name=canvas --module_path=/Users/flaviocopes/dev/old/generate-images-posts/node_modules/canvas/build/Release --napi_version=8 --node_abi_napi=napi --napi_build_version=0 --node_napi_label=node-v93' (1)
npm ERR! node-pre-gyp info it worked if it ends with ok
npm ERR! node-pre-gyp info using node-pre-gyp@0.11.0
npm ERR! node-pre-gyp info using node@16.14.2 | darwin | arm64
npm ERR! node-pre-gyp WARN Using request for node-pre-gyp https download 
npm ERR! node-pre-gyp info check checked for "/Users/flaviocopes/dev/old/generate-images-posts/node_modules/canvas/build/Release/canvas.node" (not found)
npm ERR! node-pre-gyp http GET https://github.com/node-gfx/node-canvas-prebuilt/releases/download/v2.6.1/canvas-v2.6.1-node-v93-darwin-unknown-arm64.tar.gz
npm ERR! node-pre-gyp http 404 https://github.com/node-gfx/node-canvas-prebuilt/releases/download/v2.6.1/canvas-v2.6.1-node-v93-darwin-unknown-arm64.tar.gz
npm ERR! node-pre-gyp WARN Tried to download(404): https://github.com/node-gfx/node-canvas-prebuilt/releases/download/v2.6.1/canvas-v2.6.1-node-v93-darwin-unknown-arm64.tar.gz 
npm ERR! node-pre-gyp WARN Pre-built binaries not found for canvas@2.6.1 and node@16.14.2 (node-v93 ABI, unknown) (falling back to source compile with node-gyp) 
npm ERR! node-pre-gyp http 404 status code downloading tarball https://github.com/node-gfx/node-canvas-prebuilt/releases/download/v2.6.1/canvas-v2.6.1-node-v93-darwin-unknown-arm64.tar.gz 
npm ERR! gyp info it worked if it ends with ok
npm ERR! gyp info using node-gyp@8.4.1
npm ERR! gyp info using node@16.14.2 | darwin | arm64

To fix this, I ran:

brew install pkg-config cairo pango libpng jpeg giflib librsvg 

and npm install canvas worked fine!


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