Gradle "... occurred starting process 'command 'npm''" on Mac

Question

I have MacOS with IntelliJ Idea installed. I'm using Gradle (gradle-2.4) for building the project. I have NodeJS and NPM installed on the Mac and available from the shell.

MacBook:~ user$ node -v
v4.2.2
MacBook:~ user$ npm -v
2.14.7

When running Gradle task that uses NODE/NPM, it fails with the following error (in current example it is NPM).

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':module:task'.
> A problem occurred starting process 'command 'npm''

The error stack trace from Gradle is the following.

Exception is:
org.gradle.api.tasks.TaskExecutionException: Execution failed for task ':module:task'.
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.executeActions(ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.java:69)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.execute(ExecuteActionsTaskExecuter.java:46)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.PostExecutionAnalysisTaskExecuter.execute(PostExecutionAnalysisTaskExecuter.java:35)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.SkipUpToDateTaskExecuter.execute(SkipUpToDateTaskExecuter.java:64)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ValidatingTaskExecuter.execute(ValidatingTaskExecuter.java:58)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.SkipEmptySourceFilesTaskExecuter.execute(SkipEmptySourceFilesTaskExecuter.java:42)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.SkipTaskWithNoActionsExecuter.execute(SkipTaskWithNoActionsExecuter.java:52)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.SkipOnlyIfTaskExecuter.execute(SkipOnlyIfTaskExecuter.java:53)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.tasks.execution.ExecuteAtMostOnceTaskExecuter.execute(ExecuteAtMostOnceTaskExecuter.java:43)
    at org.gradle.api.internal.AbstractTask.executeWithoutThrowingTaskFailure(AbstractTask.java:305)
    at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.AbstractTaskPlanExecutor$TaskExecutorWorker.executeTask(AbstractTaskPlanExecutor.java:79)
    at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.AbstractTaskPlanExecutor$TaskExecutorWorker.processTask(AbstractTaskPlanExecutor.java:63)
    at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.AbstractTaskPlanExecutor$TaskExecutorWorker.run(AbstractTaskPlanExecutor.java:51)
    at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.DefaultTaskPlanExecutor.process(DefaultTaskPlanExecutor.java:23)
    at org.gradle.execution.taskgraph.DefaultTaskGraphExecuter.execute(DefaultTaskGraphExecuter.java:88)
    at org.gradle.execution.SelectedTaskExecutionAction.execute(SelectedTaskExecutionAction.java:29)
    at org.gradle.execution.DefaultBuildExecuter.execute(DefaultBuildExecuter.java:62)
    at org.gradle.execution.DefaultBuildExecuter.access$200(DefaultBuildExecuter.java:23)
    at org.gradle.execution.DefaultBuildExecuter$2.proceed(DefaultBuildExecuter.java:68)
    at org.gradle.execution.DryRunBuildExecutionAction.execute(DryRunBuildExecutionAction.java:32)
    at org.gradle.execution.DefaultBuildExecuter.execute(DefaultBuildExecuter.java:62)
    at org.gradle.execution.DefaultBuildExecuter.execute(DefaultBuildExecuter.java:55)
    at org.gradle.initialization.DefaultGradleLauncher.doBuildStages(DefaultGradleLauncher.java:149)
    at org.gradle.initialization.DefaultGradleLauncher.doBuild(DefaultGradleLauncher.java:106)
    at org.gradle.initialization.DefaultGradleLauncher.run(DefaultGradleLauncher.java:86)
    at org.gradle.launcher.exec.InProcessBuildActionExecuter$DefaultBuildController.run(InProcessBuildActionExecuter.java:80)
    at org.gradle.tooling.internal.provider.BuildModelAction.run(BuildModelAction.java:43)
    at org.gradle.tooling.internal.provider.BuildModelAction.run(BuildModelAction.java:30)
    at org.gradle.tooling.internal.provider.ConfiguringBuildAction.run(ConfiguringBuildAction.java:119)
    at org.gradle.launcher.exec.InProcessBuildActionExecuter.execute(InProcessBuildActionExecuter.java:36)
    at org.gradle.launcher.exec.InProcessBuildActionExecuter.execute(InProcessBuildActionExecuter.java:26)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.ExecuteBuild.doBuild(ExecuteBuild.java:47)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.BuildCommandOnly.execute(BuildCommandOnly.java:34)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.DaemonCommandExecution.proceed(DaemonCommandExecution.java:119)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.WatchForDisconnection.execute(WatchForDisconnection.java:35)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.DaemonCommandExecution.proceed(DaemonCommandExecution.java:119)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.ResetDeprecationLogger.execute(ResetDeprecationLogger.java:24)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.DaemonCommandExecution.proceed(DaemonCommandExecution.java:119)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.StartStopIfBuildAndStop.execute(StartStopIfBuildAndStop.java:33)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.DaemonCommandExecution.proceed(DaemonCommandExecution.java:119)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.ForwardClientInput$2.call(ForwardClientInput.java:71)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.ForwardClientInput$2.call(ForwardClientInput.java:69)
    at org.gradle.util.Swapper.swap(Swapper.java:38)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.ForwardClientInput.execute(ForwardClientInput.java:69)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.DaemonCommandExecution.proceed(DaemonCommandExecution.java:119)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.LogToClient.doBuild(LogToClient.java:60)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.BuildCommandOnly.execute(BuildCommandOnly.java:34)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.DaemonCommandExecution.proceed(DaemonCommandExecution.java:119)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.EstablishBuildEnvironment.doBuild(EstablishBuildEnvironment.java:70)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.BuildCommandOnly.execute(BuildCommandOnly.java:34)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.DaemonCommandExecution.proceed(DaemonCommandExecution.java:119)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.DaemonHygieneAction.execute(DaemonHygieneAction.java:39)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.DaemonCommandExecution.proceed(DaemonCommandExecution.java:119)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.exec.StartBuildOrRespondWithBusy$1.run(StartBuildOrRespondWithBusy.java:46)
    at org.gradle.launcher.daemon.server.DaemonStateCoordinator$1.run(DaemonStateCoordinator.java:246)
    at org.gradle.internal.concurrent.DefaultExecutorFactory$StoppableExecutorImpl$1.run(DefaultExecutorFactory.java:64)
Caused by: org.gradle.process.internal.ExecException: A problem occurred starting process 'command 'npm''
    at org.gradle.process.internal.DefaultExecHandle.setEndStateInfo(DefaultExecHandle.java:196)
    at org.gradle.process.internal.DefaultExecHandle.failed(DefaultExecHandle.java:325)
    at org.gradle.process.internal.ExecHandleRunner.run(ExecHandleRunner.java:83)
    ... 1 more
Caused by: net.rubygrapefruit.platform.NativeException: Could not start 'npm'
    at net.rubygrapefruit.platform.internal.DefaultProcessLauncher.start(DefaultProcessLauncher.java:27)
    at net.rubygrapefruit.platform.internal.WrapperProcessLauncher.start(WrapperProcessLauncher.java:36)
    at org.gradle.process.internal.ExecHandleRunner.run(ExecHandleRunner.java:65)
    ... 1 more
Caused by: java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "npm" (in directory "/<project path>"): error=2, No such file or directory
    at net.rubygrapefruit.platform.internal.DefaultProcessLauncher.start(DefaultProcessLauncher.java:25)
    ... 3 more
Caused by: java.io.IOException: error=2, No such file or directory
    ... 4 more

So it looks like Gradle is trying to find NPM in the project absolute directory and doesn't use Mac PATH environment variable. Anyone knows how to avoid/workaround this? I cannot use absolute path for NODE/NPM as the team is shared and using different OSes (Linux, MacOS). Any ideas? :)

Answer 1

I stop the gradle daemon by running

$ ./gradlew --stop

rerun the gradle command and fix it.

Answer 2

I had a similar issue and in my case, problem was that when I ran it from IntelliJ, Gradle was unable to access path to find out where node / npm is. I was using the gradle-gulp-plugin and enabling automatic download of node resolved the problem.

buildscript {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
        jcenter()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath('be.filipblondeel.gradle:gradle-gulp-plugin:0.1')
    }
}
node {
    // Version of node to use.
    version = '0.12.0'

    // Enabled the automatic download.
    download = true
}

Answer 3

I had the same problem and got it resolved by running the command:

gradle --stop

Answer 4

Might be usefull for someone:

In my case the problem was, that I had Android Studio running. Had to quit it first, then everything worked fine again.