docker container crashes with exited with code 139 - node.js

Question

I have this docker file build/and run an node application
# ---- Base Node ----
FROM node:10 AS base
# Create app directory
WORKDIR /app
# ---- Dependencies ----
FROM base AS dependencies
COPY package.json ./
# install app dependencies including 'devDependencies'
RUN npm install
# ---- Copy Files/Build ----
FROM dependencies AS build
WORKDIR /app
COPY . /app
# Build the app
RUN npm run build
WORKDIR /app/dist
# install npm models in dist
RUN npm install --only=production
# --- Release with Alpine ----
FROM node:10-alpine AS release
# Create app directory
WORKDIR /app
# optional
ENV NODE_ENV=development
ENV MONGO_HOST=mongodb://localhost/chronas-api
ENV MONGO_PORT=27017
ENV PORT=80
# copy app from build
COPY --from=build /app/dist/ ./
CMD ["node", "index.js"]
and using this docker-compose file
version: '3'
services:
database:
image: mongo
container_name: mongo
ports:
- "27017:27017"
app:
build: .
container_name: chronas_api
ports:
- "80:80"
- "5858:5858"
links:
- database
environment:
- JWT_SECRET='placeholder'
- MONGO_HOST=mongodb://database/chronas-api
- APPINSIGHTS_INSTRUMENTATIONKEY='placeholder'
- TWITTER_CONSUMER_KEY=placeholder
- TWITTER_CONSUMER_SECRET=placeholder
- TWITTER_CALLBACK_URL=placeholder
- PORT=80
depends_on:
- database
stdin_open: true
tty: true
always when I try to write to the mongodb the node container crashes with this error:
exited with code 139
can anyone help? When I run the application only with docker it works fine

Answer 1

The issue may be caused by the fact that node:10-alpine is a tag where the underlying image may change with updates, so when you are building the same app without using compose it won't pull the most recent image, docker-compose will do a pull from the docker hub instead.
Images based on alpine may have some dependency issues that are quite hard to debug from one version to another, you can find some possibilities for this particular issue here
I was using the tag node:8-alpine in my application and I found out that the current latest node:8.15.1-alpine is causing the Exited with code 139 issue that was not present in the previous image node:8.15.0-alpine. Downgrading may be the easiest solution to solve this kind of issue, check if you are using bcrypt too.
Another option is to use a debian based image that will be less likely to have this kind of issues (just consider it's slighly bigger in size).