electron: Failed at the electron@1.4.13 postinstall script 'node install.js'

Same problem here. Failed at node install.js.

• macOS 10.12.2 Sierra
• node 6.9.2
• npm 4.1.1 (using registry: https://registry.npm.taobao.org)

Here’s the log: npm-debug.log.zip

The console shows some error about permission denied to link the release package. But I did used sudo command. I tried to manually perform the link and then run sudo node install.js. It put me on hold for over 10 mins showing me nothing, until I hit Ctrl + C to cancel.

The release package electron-v1.4.13-darwin-x64.zip is found under ~/.electron with size 42.1MB so the network should be fine. I unzipped the file and copied Electron.app to /Applications folder. It works just fine. Launch the app and it tells me “To run your app with Electron, execute the following command in your Console (or Terminal):” /Applications/Electron.app/Contents/MacOS/Electron path-to-your-app. Run it with no path and it opened up another electron window.

Guess a manually link to global CLI command is all I need to do next. But this doesn’t sound like a long-term solution for future upgrade with npm.

I also tried with the latest version 1.4.14. Nothing changed. Hope the team can fixed this ASAP. thx ahead.

Machine Specs:

Operating System: macOS Big Sur v11.6

NPM version: v6.14.13

Node version : v14.17.0

After some digging, I found this post that allowed me to get it installed globally.

TL;TR Open your terminal and execute the follow command sudo npm install -g electron --unsafe-perm=true --allow-root

Hope it helps!

Happy coding =)

facing the same issue, tried the last answer did not work, please help.

I’ve got a solution. Not the best way but should be enough if you need to install electron right now and don’t have time to wait for the official fix.

Everyone here got into trouble when it comes to postinstall script 'node install.js'. So let’s start with that.

Run npm install --save electron for your project and hit Ctrl + C when it comes to this sentence. The download has not complete yet but we’ve got what we need.

Under YOUR_PROJECT_PATH/node_modules/electron/ you can find this install.js file. If you open it and take a look. It’s simply some javascript code to download the release package (which you can download directly from Github) and extract it. That’s all. So either something went wrong with the network so the download took too long, or the script do not have permission to extract zip file and rename it.

Since it crashes when running automatically, let’s do it manually.

Just follow what the file says:

1. Download the release package file. (from Github, the release panel, using any way you like)
2. Extract it into YOUR_PROJECT_PATH/node_modules/electron.
3. Rename the extracted folder to ‘dist’.
4. Create a path.txt file here. Write dist/Electron.app/Contents/MacOS/Electron and save it. (This is for mac, For Windows write dist/electron.exe, and for linux write dist/electron. You can find these in the end of ‘install.js’)

Now you’ve installed it locally.

By running ./node_modules/electron/dist/Electron.app/Contents/MacOS/Electron . (don’t miss the dot at the beginning & end of the line), your project should start up. (For non-MacOS environment. the path might be a little different. I trust you can find the right one.)

Next, you can either use npm script to make a alias for that loooooooong command. Or install electron globally so you can run electron from the terminal. (Same process. Only this time run npm install -g electron and do it under /usr/local/lib/node_modules/electron/)

This worked for me. Hope it works for you too. Happy Coding!