The package can't be installed

[mlomb]

Hey, I was debugging some problem (#117) in chat-analytics (which uses whatsapp-chat-parser) and found out the package can't be installed due the postinstall script.

> npm i whatsapp-chat-parser
npm error code 1
npm error path C:\Users\Lombi\node_modules\whatsapp-chat-parser
npm error command failed
npm error command C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /d /s /c husky install
npm error 'husky' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
npm error operable program or batch file.

npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: C:\Users\Lombi\AppData\Local\npm-cache\_logs\2024-08-13T17_30_41_373Z-debug-0.log

The problem persists when trying to install chat-analytics.

npm i -g chat-analytics
npm error code 1
npm error path C:\Users\Lombi\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\chat-analytics\node_modules\whatsapp-chat-parser
npm error command failed
npm error command C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /d /s /c husky install
npm error 'husky' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
npm error operable program or batch file.

npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: C:\Users\Lombi\AppData\Local\npm-cache\_logs\2024-08-13T17_33_06_953Z-debug-0.log

I recommend removing the postinstall script. I usually have those disabled, but forgot to do so in this machine.

😃

[Pustur]

Hi @mlomb

Can you tell me what version are you trying to install?

Edit: I guess 4.0.0 looking at your package.json

I'll look into this

[mlomb]

This is interesting 🤔

PS C:\Users\Lombi> npm i whatsapp-chat-parser
npm error code 1
npm error path C:\Users\Lombi\node_modules\whatsapp-chat-parser
npm error command failed
npm error command C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /d /s /c husky install
npm error 'husky' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
npm error operable program or batch file.

npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: C:\Users\Lombi\AppData\Local\npm-cache\_logs\2024-08-13T17_49_47_287Z-debug-0.log
PS C:\Users\Lombi> npm i whatsapp-chat-parser@4.0.0
npm error code 1
npm error path C:\Users\Lombi\node_modules\whatsapp-chat-parser
npm error command failed
npm error command C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /d /s /c husky install
npm error 'husky' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
npm error operable program or batch file.

npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: C:\Users\Lombi\AppData\Local\npm-cache\_logs\2024-08-13T17_49_50_448Z-debug-0.log
PS C:\Users\Lombi> npm i whatsapp-chat-parser@latest

added 1 package, and audited 2 packages in 616ms

found 0 vulnerabilities

[Pustur]

First of all, i can reproduce the issue on my windows machine

Secondly, it's clear(er) what's happening now after a bit of research

In my package, i used the husky package to run a script on precommit (format + lint + tests)
Husky is supposed to run only in development, which is why i used the pinst package to disable the postinstall script when publishing the package to npm (pinst does this by renaming the field to _postinstall so it doesn't run)

Well apparently the metadata on npm's servers and the one contained in my package.json file is different, in theirs the field still has the correct name

$ npm view whatsapp-chat-parser@4.0.0 scripts
{
  build: 'tsup',
  test: 'TZ=UTC vitest run',
  'test:watch': 'TZ=UTC vitest watch',
  'test:coverage': 'TZ=UTC vitest run --coverage',
  lint: 'tsc && eslint .',
  format: 'prettier --write .',
  'format:staged': 'pretty-quick --staged',
  prepack: 'npm run build && pinst --disable',
  postpack: 'pinst --enable',
  prepublishOnly: 'npm run build && npm t && pinst --disable',
  postinstall: 'husky install', # this is supposed to be "_postinstall" just like the published package.json!
  postpublish: 'pinst --enable'
}

This has been explained much better by this post:

https://gist.github.com/djcsdy/2f5a287b3ba16f2a8f0312f45588e6ce

Which I found here:

typicode/pinst#23

To fix this I will have to reevaluate how i run these scripts, and probably there are better ways to do that nowadays.

Thanks a lot for bringing this to my attention, I'll try to fix it as soon as possible.

[Pustur]

Hi @mlomb
The problem should be gone in the new version.

Querying 4.0.0:

➜ npm view whatsapp-chat-parser@4.0.0 scripts
{
  lint: 'tsc && eslint .',
  test: 'TZ=UTC vitest run',
  build: 'tsup',
  format: 'prettier --write .',
  prepack: 'npm run build && pinst --disable',
  postpack: 'pinst --enable',
  'test:watch': 'TZ=UTC vitest watch',
  postinstall: 'husky install',
  postpublish: 'pinst --enable',
  'format:staged': 'pretty-quick --staged',
  'test:coverage': 'TZ=UTC vitest run --coverage',
  prepublishOnly: 'npm run build && npm t && pinst --disable'
}

Querying 4.0.1:

➜ npm view whatsapp-chat-parser@4.0.1 scripts
{
  build: 'tsup',
  test: 'cross-env TZ=UTC vitest run',
  'test:watch': 'cross-env TZ=UTC vitest watch',
  'test:coverage': 'cross-env TZ=UTC vitest run --coverage',
  lint: 'tsc && eslint .',
  format: 'prettier --write .',
  prepublishOnly: 'npm run build && npm t'
}

How did I solve it?

I removed the dependencies from the packages mentioned above and removed some dev scripts.
The important quality checks are still in CI anyway