node-gyp: Error: 404 status code downloading 32-bit node.lib

OP: your output says gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v2.0.2, and anyone else in here who has an alternative npm installed including

I’m running NPM 3.3.2

You currently must use the npm that’s bundled with Node v4.0.0, both vanilla npm v2 and npm v3 ship with an older node-gyp which doesn’t know about the new node.lib locations but for Node v4 we’re shipping a patched version that has node-gyp v3 installed. npm will be shipping it soon though (@zkat says npm v2 will get it in next week’s release, I’m not sure about v3).

This is primarily a problem for Windows because of the node.lib location change. All other platforms just need the source tarball which they can get just fine but the newer node-gyp also swaps out the source tarball for a much smaller headers tarball so that’s a bonus.

If you want to try and hack your npm install because you’re somehow stuck on a particular version then you can do this (not supported or necessarily recommended):

1. find the node_modules/npm/ directory on your system, OP has C:\Users\Mauve\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\npm, cd into that directory
2. run npm install node-gyp@latest

that should bundle the right node-gyp with the version of npm you’re using and it should work

another alternative is to install node-gyp globally and use it directly to compile addons, that’s not so convenient when they’re coming as project dependencies though.

@everettmuniz Thank you! Your solution worked for me.

I am using nodist so I did

$ cd C:\nodist\bin\node_modules\npm
$ npm install node-gyp@latest

Thanks again.

Installing Node 4.1.2 and NPM 3.3.6 and node-gyp globally only led me to the following very weird error 😕

@ C:\Projects\Github\InstitutionsWeb\node_modules\core-js\node_modules\utf-8-validate
> if not defined npm_config_node_gyp (node "C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs\node_modules\npm\bin\node-gyp-bin\\..\..\node
_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js" rebuild )  else (node  rebuild )
Building the projects in this solution one at a time. To enable parallel build, please add the "/m" switch.
C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V140\Microsoft.CppBuild.targets(366,5): warning MSB8003: Could not fi
nd WindowsSDKDir variable from the registry.  TargetFrameworkVersion or PlatformToolset may be set to an invalid versio
n number. [C:\Projects\Github\InstitutionsWeb\node_modules\core-js\node_modules\utf-8-validate\build\validation.vcxproj
]
TRACKER : error TRK0005: Failed to locate: "CL.exe". The system cannot find the file specified. [C:\Projects\Github\Ins
titutionsWeb\node_modules\core-js\node_modules\utf-8-validate\build\validation.vcxproj]


gyp ERR! build error
gyp ERR! stack Error: `C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin\msbuild.exe` failed with exit code: 1
gyp ERR! stack     at ChildProcess.onExit (C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\lib\bui
ld.js:270:23)
gyp ERR! stack     at emitTwo (events.js:87:13)
gyp ERR! stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:172:7)
gyp ERR! stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:200:12)
gyp ERR! System Windows_NT 6.1.7601
gyp ERR! command "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\node_
modules\\node-gyp\\bin\\node-gyp.js" "rebuild"
gyp ERR! cwd C:\Projects\Github\InstitutionsWeb\node_modules\core-js\node_modules\utf-8-validate
gyp ERR! node -v v4.1.2
gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v3.0.3
gyp ERR! not ok
npm WARN install:utf-8-validate utf-8-validate@1.2.1 install: `node-gyp rebuild`
npm WARN install:utf-8-validate Exit status 1

I had the same issue yesterday. Very new to nodejs but here’s how I fixed it. YMMV.

1. Open a command prompt as administrator
2. Change the current directory to the directory your version of NPM is running from. For me that is “C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm”
3. copy the “C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm” to something like “C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npmOld” in case you want to undo the next step
4. typed: npm install node-gyp@latest
5. hit enter

To the best of my knowledge, that’s updating the version of node-gyp that NPM is using.