bower: unexpected end of input on install/update

Time to time bower install and bower update throw up with Unexpected end of input error. On local and remote CI machine, both running different versions of OS X Maverick.

bower.json is not malformatted, but there is a dependency to a private Git repository on HTTPS which authenticates with .netrc file. The error is rare and is not always reproducible.

Example trace:

bower                                     error Unexpected end of input

Stack trace:
SyntaxError: Unexpected end of input
    at Object.parse (native)
    at /Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/core/Manager.js:185:37
    at _fulfilled (/Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:787:54)
    at self.promiseDispatch.done (/Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:816:30)
    at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (/Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:749:13)
    at /Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:557:44
    at flush (/Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:108:17)
    at process._tickCallback (node.js:419:13)

Console trace:
Trace
    at StandardRenderer.error (/Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/renderers/StandardRenderer.js:82:17)
    at Logger.<anonymous> (/Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/bin/bower:110:22)
    at Logger.emit (events.js:95:17)
    at Logger.emit (/Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/bower-logger/lib/Logger.js:29:39)
    at /Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/commands/index.js:40:20
    at _rejected (/Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:797:24)
    at /Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:823:30
    at Promise.when (/Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:1035:31)
    at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (/Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:741:41)
    at /Users/ain/.nvm/v0.10.31/lib/node_modules/bower/node_modules/q/q.js:557:44

System info:
Bower version: 1.3.11
Node version: 0.10.31
OS: Darwin 13.4.0 x64

shell returned 1

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 10 years ago
Comments: 16 (3 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

Correction: semver >= range removed, but reproduced nevertheless. Happens at random, but seems to retain it’s false behaviour once it has happened, which brought me to cache.

Currently, for a clean install, I’m using the following:

rm -rf bower_components/ && bower cache clean && bower i

and so far it has delivered a dozen of times I’ve tested it.

UPDATE: as soon as you upgrade to a range, e.g. >=1.11.1 <3.0.0, it breaks again. So the whole bower installation process is completely unreliable.

ain on Apr 8, 2016