Sharp package Heroku deployment issue - node.js

Question

I'm deploying my NodeJs app to Heroku. No issues running the app with nodemon locally.
However when I'm trying to push to Heroku Master, seems like "sharp" package is causing an issue:
remote: -----> Installing dependencies
remote: Installing node modules (package.json + package-lock)
remote:
remote: > sharp#0.22.0 install
/tmp/build_4cfeda2379ea362c72ac083b57638cce/node_modules/sharp
remote: > (node install/libvips && node install/dll-copy &&
prebuild-install) || (node-gyp rebuild && node install/dll-copy)
remote:
remote: info sharp Downloading
https://github.com/lovell/sharp-libvips/releases/download/v8.7.4/libvips-8.7.4-linux-x64.tar.gz
remote:
/tmp/build_4cfeda2379ea362c72ac083b57638cce/node_modules/sharp/install/libvips.js:86
remote: throw new Error(Status
${response.statusCode});
remote: ^
remote:
remote: Error: Status 403
remote: at
/tmp/build_4cfeda2379ea362c72ac083b57638cce/node_modules/sharp/install/libvips.js:86:17
remote: at f
(/tmp/build_4cfeda2379ea362c72ac083b57638cce/node_modules/once/once.js:25:25)
remote: at ClientRequest.protocol.request.res
(/tmp/build_4cfeda2379ea362c72ac083b57638cce/node_modules/simple-get/index.js:63:5)
remote: at Object.onceWrapper (events.js:277:13)
remote: at ClientRequest.emit (events.js:189:13)
remote: at HTTPParser.parserOnIncomingClient [as
onIncoming] (_http_client.js:556:21)
remote: at HTTPParser.parserOnHeadersComplete
(_http_common.js:109:17)
remote: at TLSSocket.socketOnData (_http_client.js:442:20)
remote: at TLSSocket.emit (events.js:189:13)
remote: at addChunk (_stream_readable.js:284:12)
remote: make: Entering directory
'/tmp/build_4cfeda2379ea362c72ac083b57638cce/node_modules/sharp/build'
remote: TOUCH Release/obj.target/libvips-cpp.stamp
remote: CXX(target) Release/obj.target/sharp/src/common.o
remote: ../src/common.cc:25:10: fatal error: vips/vips8: No
such file or directory
remote: #include
remote: ^~~~~~~~~~~~
remote: compilation terminated.
remote: sharp.target.mk:128: recipe for target
'Release/obj.target/sharp/src/common.o' failed
remote: make: *** [Release/obj.target/sharp/src/common.o] Error
1
remote: make: Leaving directory
'/tmp/build_4cfeda2379ea362c72ac083b57638cce/node_modules/sharp/build'
Update:
Try removing sharp from package.json and add it back again using npm install sharp works this time... I still don't know why.
remote: -----> Installing dependencies
remote: Installing node modules (package.json + package-lock)
remote:
remote: > sharp#0.22.0 install
/tmp/build_5c8d3b01594e0b86f9d3e0d372534414/node_modules/sharp
remote: > (node install/libvips && node install/dll-copy &&
prebuild-install) || (node-gyp rebuild && node install/dll-copy)
remote:
remote: info sharp Downloading
https://github.com/lovell/sharp-libvips/releases/download/v8.7.4/libvips-8.7.4-linux-x64.tar.gz
remote: added 57 packages from 92 contributors and audited
20393 packages in 10.683s
remote: found 62 low severity vulnerabilities
remote: run npm audit fix to fix them, or npm audit for
details
remote:
remote: -----> Build
remote:
remote: -----> Caching build
remote: - node_modules
remote:
remote: -----> Pruning devDependencies
remote: removed 606 packages and audited 497 packages in 8.181s
remote: found 0 vulnerabilities
remote:
remote:
remote: -----> Build succeeded!

Answer 1

There are many people with that problem, it's related to libvips as dependency not sharp by itself.
On github in this issue-comment the problem is explained:
The pre-built binaries of sharp are only guaranteed to work with the pre-built binaries of libvips.
If the download of a pre-built binary of libvips fails then sharp has to fall back to attempting to build itself from source.
http://sharp.pixelplumbing.com/en/stable/install/#pre-compiled-libvips-binaries provides information about serving the libvips binaries from a local URL.
The reason why the download is failing might be the cache, or a corrupted download like reported in the above linked issue on github:
I had to manually remove the ~/.npm/_libvips/libvips-8.7.0-linux-x64.tar.gz and try again. Seems to be downloaded a corrupted file.
Here is an interesting discussion concerning the same problem related to gatsby, a solution seems not yet existing even the issue was closed (before any comment was made): https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues/1754
However if the problem is only related to the download for some reason it's possible to deploy libvips locally like explained in the manual:
Pre-compiled libvips binaries
This module will attempt to download a pre-compiled bundle of libvips
and its dependencies on Linux and Windows machines under either of
these conditions:
If a global installation of libvips that meets the minimum version
requirement cannot be found;
If SHARP_IGNORE_GLOBAL_LIBVIPS environment variable is set.
SHARP_IGNORE_GLOBAL_LIBVIPS=1 npm install sharp
Should you need to manually download and inspect these files,
you can do so via https://github.com/lovell/sharp-libvips/releases
Should you wish to install these from your own location, set the
sharp_dist_base_url npm config option, e.g.
npm config set sharp_dist_base_url "https://hostname/path/"
npm install sharp
or set the SHARP_DIST_BASE_URL environment variable, e.g.
SHARP_DIST_BASE_URL="https://hostname/path/" npm install sharp
to use https://hostname/path/libvips-x.y.z-platform.tar.gz.
So this is a bit background, I'm aware that this can not really be seen as an answer with solution :/

Answer 2

If someone reaches here and didn't found an answer - my issue was that my project was using an old node version (8.x)
The solution was to install an older version of sharp - The latest one that support 8.x - "sharp": "0.23.4"