libsass bindings not found when using node-sass in nodejs

Question

I want to use the node-sass module in my node.js v0.12 application to benefit from the performance of libsass.
I executed npm i node-sass to install the module, no errors so far.

Now the mess starts:
If I just open the REPL in a terminal to try out node-sass then everything works fine but if I include it in my project files and run node myfile.js then I get the following error message:

Error: `libsass` bindings not found. Try reinstalling `node-sass`?

The module's description at npmjs.com states that there might be a problem with resolving #!/usr/bin/env node under Ubuntu and how to fix this but that is not the case on my machine.
I could not find anything useful so I hope that you might help me.

I'm using node v0.12.2 under Ubuntu 14.10.

P.S.: I already tried to reinstall node-sass but without success. Nothing changes.

Host

If Philipp's answer solved your issues, please accept. It fixed my issue. – Longshoreman

I ran into this within my Ionic project after I updated to the lated NodeJS release -- the out put instructs to run a npm rebuild node-sass, which got rid of the error for me/my environment. – Birnbaum

Answer 1

You’ve probably tried to reinstall node-sass while using

npm install node-sass

or

npm uninstall node-sass
npm install node-sass

But node-sass is a C version of Sass. You have to use npm rebuild:

npm rebuild node-sass

Shalna

When I try the rebuild command I get the error 'Error: Can't find Python executable "python"... Not sure mine is a C version of Sass – Ioneionesco

@Sebastian Native Abstractions for Node (nan) "change dramatically from one release to the next" and often need to be recompiled for each release. node-sass is entirely about binding node to lib-sass, a C program. links: node addons, a celebrated comment, libsass – Hakodate

Answer 2

If you're using node 4.x or later then you need to reinstall gulp-sass with:

npm uninstall --save-dev gulp-sass
npm install --save-dev gulp-sass@2

Earwig

Thank you! I always forget how to solve this issue, and by far this was the simplest and quickest solution. – Algiers

This fixed my issue! Was a result of updating node significantly. – Delectable

I didn't do like this but just changed the version number in package.json file manually to 2.1.0 from 1.x.x. – Clintonclintonia

This finally did it for me, unlike pretty much every other reply to this question. +1 – Semen

Thank you Thank you Thank you! This little issue killed a demo once and I was afraid to upgrade and reverted back to 0.12.7, today I tried again, had the issue occur and this fixed it! – Fernanda

this fixed it for me too...after weeks of trying other solutions and not having a test suite on my project. Thanks – Swarth

thank you!! banging my head on this one for an hour now – Bursarial

This also worked exactly as written but for 'grunt-sass' instead of 'gulp-sass' if using grunt. (I have no idea how it worked... but it did) – Cohn

Yeah this fixed it thanks it was driving me nuts.. Also manually compiled libsass sassc but i dont think i need to doing this – Yolandayolande

this is fixing it for node 0.12.0. – Jubbah

Answer 3

I fixed this issue by deleting the existing /node_modules folder and running npm update

Triplett

tried this actually but in this case the /node_modules was under SVN control... deleting the directory threw the SVN tree out of sync. It's somewhat of a good option otherwise! – Sleet

This happens to me from time to time as well, and deleting node_modules and re-running npm install works for me as well. – Jonathanjonathon

Source control is a bad place to store dependencies for this reason! It requires complete lockstep of all your environments. package.json is designed to describe your dependencies, and you should use something else to install your dependencies on your boxes. (having a script that calls npm install, or a docker container, or or or) – Miry

Maybe he wanted a complete lockstep of all his environments? -- Predictable and Reproducible Builds != Bad idea. – Ogren

Thats is what package.json is for. You don't want to store all the node_modules non-sense in source control. – Jenninejennings

I did similar thing. but before that I manually changed the gulp-sass version to 2.1.0. which worked for me. Thanks. – Clintonclintonia

@AFD While I agree that storing node_modules in source control is not ideal, package.json on its own does not freeze the versions. You can easily specify a specific version of a dependency within your package.json, but you have no control over how versions are declared within that dependency's package.json. – Contrecoup

Answer 4

This is the only solution that worked for me,

sudo npm install -g n
sudo n 0.12.7
npm install node-sass@2
sudo npm -g install node-gyp@3
npm rebuild node-sass

Cavell

Answer 5

This workaround (http://forum.ionicframework.com/t/error-running-gulp-sass/32311/20) worked form me.

Starting with this setup:

Cordova CLI: 5.3.3 Gulp version: CLI version 3.9.0 Gulp local: Local version 3.9.0 Ionic Version: 1.1.0 Ionic CLI Version: 1.6.5 Ionic App Lib Version: 0.3.9 ios-deploy version: Not installed ios-sim version: 5.0.1 OS: Mac OS X Yosemite Node Version: v4.1.1 Xcode version: Xcode 6.4 Build version 6E35b

I've found a solution to avoid to use 'sudo' command. We need before to fix npm permissions following this: https://docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/fixing-npm-permissions and fixing permissions for Node here: http://mawaha.com/permission-fix-node-js/ After this we can check and reinstall software without 'sudo' for npm, n or ionic.

I followed this step:

npm install -g n
rm -R node_modules/ 
npm install [email protected] 
npm -g install node-gyp@3
npm uninstall gulp-sass
npm install gulp-sass@2 
npm rebuild node-sass 
ionic setup sass 

Why [email protected]? Because it works with latest ionic version: https://github.com/driftyco/ionic/pull/4449

Moulin

Thank you so so so so so much. Finally fixed it after 2 hours <3 – Sienese

Answer 6

Combining the two answers above worked for me, plus additions:

sudo npm uninstall --save gulp-sass
npm install --save gulp-sass@2
npm update
npm rebuild node-sass

Brinkema

Answer 7

I have solved this to create the right directory with the specified binding.node file. You can download the bindings from github

https://github.com/sass/node-sass-binaries

Look in the error message the path where it tries to find the binding. In my case:

C:\Users\Martijn\Documents\node_modules\gulp-sass\node_modules\node-sass\vendor\win32-x64-46

So I create this map win32-x64-46 and copy the binding from github in.

Jabiru

Answer 8

My solution was to downgrade to v0.10.25 (try sudo n 0.10.25 if you use n)

Papilla

Answer 9

For me, this issue was caused in my build system (Travis CI) by doing something kind of dumb in my .travis.yml file. In effect, I was calling npm install before nvm use 0.12, and this was causing node-sass to be built for 0.10 instead of 0.12. My solution was simply moving nvm use out of the .travis.yml file’s before_script section to before the npm install command, which was in the before_install section.

Shu

Answer 10

This was a Node version issue for me, try using nvm to backtrack your version to something like: 0.10.32. This worked for me. I was running 4.2.2

Silurid

Answer 11

I solved this problem by updating my gcc from 4.4.x to 4.7.x

Clyde

Answer 12

No need for sudo or re-installations. This has always worked for me:

nvm use 0.12.2

Besnard

Answer 13

This is the steps I undertook to fix my issue.

1. I updated my node manually to the latest version

2. Reinstalled node-sass

npm install node-sass

3.npm audit fix to fix certain vulnerabilities.

`npm audit fix`

5.npm install node-sass

 `npm install node-sass`

worked and compiled properly thereafter. I apologize if anything related to my answer isn't right. I'm just a beginner. Hope it works for you

Carvel