axios: Axios not receiving 204 response with Transfer-Encoding header in Node v14

Describe the bug

After upgrading our node version to v14.15.1 our Axios requests in our express server never receive a response from an endpoint that returns 204 with header: ‘Transfer-Encoding’: ‘chunked’. I know we should not be receiving this (see here) but we do not have control of this endpoint.

Previously when we were on v10.23.0 of node we had no problem with receiving these responses.

I have tried the same request with the request library and am able to receive a response. See example below.

To Reproduce

Created a simple express server to demonstrate.

npm install axios express request

With the following index.js

Sending a GET request to http://localhost:8555/request will return 200 OK, whereas the request to http://localhost:8555/ will timeout/never receive a response.

const express = require('express');
const axios = require('axios');
const request = require('request');

const httpPort = 8555;

const app = express();

app.get('/', async (req, res, next) => {
  try {
    const result = await axios.get(`http://localhost:${httpPort}/sample-upstream-response`, {
      timeout: 10000,
    });
    res.send(result.data);
  } catch (error) {
    res.sendStatus(500);
  }
});

app.get('/request', (req, res, next) => {
  request(`http://localhost:${httpPort}/sample-upstream-response`, { json: true }, (err, response, body) => {
    if (err) { 
      return res.sendStatus(500);
    }
    res.send(body);
  });
});

app.get('/sample-upstream-response', (req, res, next) => {
  res.writeHead(204, {
    'Transfer-Encoding': 'chunked',
  });
  res.end();
});

app.listen(httpPort, () => {
  console.log(`INFO: listening on http://localhost:${httpPort}`);
});

Expected behavior

I am expecting that Axios should be able to receive the response from this server. Or I should be able to change some axios config to be able to receive this response.

Environment

• Axios Version 0.21.0
• Node.js Version 14.15.1
• OS: Windows 10, ubuntu 18.04
• Additional Library Versions express 4.17.1, request 2.88.2

Additional context/Screenshots