Node.js: Python not found exception due to node-sass and node-gyp

so this happened to me on windows recently. I fix it by following the following steps using a PowerShell with admin privileges:

1. delete node_modulesfolder
2. running npm install --global windows-build-tools with administrative privilege. (in my case need restart - and restart without ask!!!)
3. reinstalling node modules or node-sass with npm install

The error message means that it cannot locate your python executable or binary.

In many cases, it's installed at c:\python27. if it's not installed yet, you can install it with npm install --global windows-build-tools, which will only work if it hasn't been installed yet.

Adding it to the environment variables does not always work. A better alternative, is to just set it in the npm config.

npm config set python "C:\Python27\python.exe"

You need to follow the below steps to fix the error:

    1: DELETE node_modules
    2: npm install node-sass@<version-as-per-below-table>
    3. npm install

Every node-sass version corresponds to a specific Node.JS build.

Below is a quick guide for minimum and maximum support supported versions of node-sass (Check updates to the below table here) :

| NodeJS  | Supported node-sass version | Node Module |
|---------|-----------------------------|-------------|
| Node 20 | 9.0+                        | 115         |
| Node 19 | 8.0+                        | 111         |
| Node 18 | 8.0+                        | 108         |
| Node 17 | 7.0+, <8.0                  | 102         |
| Node 16 | 6.0+                        | 93          |
| Node 15 | 5.0+                        | 88          |
| Node 14 | 4.14+                       | 83          |
| Node 13 | 4.13+, <5.0                 | 79          |
| Node 12 | 4.12+                       | 72          |
| Node 11 | 4.10+, <5.0                 | 67          |
| Node 10 | 4.9+, <6.0                  | 64          |
| Node 8  | 4.5.3+, <5.0                | 57          |
| Node <8 | <5.0                        | <57         |

Two options (December 2021):

• 1 - You can't upgrade "node-sass" package!
  • Install Python 2 and modify its .exe file name.
  • Fix PATH env variable records order (details below).
• 2 - Update node-sass package.

Precondition

You updated Node.JS to the latest version (v16.13.1) on Windows 10.
You run yarn install or npm install in your project's folder and receive an error (look below).

Option 1. Installing of Python-2 and fixing PATH env

See MSI installer

After installation

Note! Try to reinstall the latest Node.js to x86 from x64, if you get the following error on x64. (But with x86 you could receive memory limit errors, also.)

Error: Node Sass does not yet support your current environment: Windows 64-bit with Unsupported runtime (93)

Resort Python records in PATH env variable

Python 3 records must be above Python 2 records!

Copy python.exe to python2.exe

Option 2. Upgrading of node-sass package

Over package.json file

Modify package.json and run yarn install or npm install on your project's folder.
Other files will be updated automatically.

Before

After updating:

Or use yarn or npm CLI to do the same but it may noticeably change your .lock files.

After updating you could realize that you need to update also sass-loader, webpack, etc.

Error you may have (FYI)

gyp verb check python checking for Python executable "python2" in the PATH
gyp verb `which` failed Error: not found: python2

gyp ERR! stack Error: Command failed: C:\Python310\python.EXE -c import sys; print "%s.%s.%s" % sys.version_info[:3];
gyp ERR! stack   File "<string>", line 1
gyp ERR! stack     import sys; print "%s.%s.%s" % sys.version_info[:3];
gyp ERR! stack                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
gyp ERR! stack SyntaxError: Missing parentheses in call to 'print'. Did you mean print(...)?

My machine is Windows 10, I've faced similar problems while tried to compile SASS using node-sass package. My node version is v10.16.3 and npm version is 6.9.0

The way that I resolved the problem:

1. At first delete package-lock.json file and node_modules/ folder.
2. Open Windows PowerShell as Administrator.
3. Run the command npm i -g node-sass.
4. After that, go to the project folder and run npm install
5. And finally, run the SASS compiling script, in my case, it is npm run build:css

And it works!!

go to package.json and change

"node-sass": "4.14.1",

with

"node-sass": "^7.0.1",

it works for me after that i can able to run npm install

in other word you need to use the latest package which can support the latest python version.

Note: Node Saas 7.0.1 is compatible with "react-scripts": "5.0.0" if your package.json has "react-scripts": "4.0.0", then change it as

 "react-scripts": "5.0.0", 

I had to:

Delete node_modules
Uninstall/reinstall node
npm install [email protected]

worked fine after forcing it to the right sass version, according to the version said to be working with the right node.

NodeJS  Minimum node-sass version   Node Module
Node 12 4.12+   72
Node 11 4.10+   67
Node 10 4.9+    64
Node 8  4.5.3+  57

There was lots of other errors that seemed to be caused by the wrong sass version defined.

node-gyp requires old Python 2 - link

If you don't have it installed - check other answers about installing windows-build-tools.

If you are like me and have both old and new Python versions installed, chances are that node-gyp tries to use Python 3. And that results in the following SyntaxError: invalid syntax error.

I found an article about having two Python versions installed. And they recommend renaming Python 2.* executable to python2.exe - link.

So it looks like node-gyp is expecting to find old Python 2 executable renamed. Hence the error message:

...
gyp verb check python checking for Python executable "python2" in the PATH
gyp verb `which` failed Error: not found: python2
...

Once I renamed C:\Python27\python.exe to C:\Python27\python2.exe it worked without errors.

Of course, both C:\Python27\ and C:\Python39\ have to be in PATH variable. And no need in setting old Python version in npm config. Your default Python still will be the new one.

node-sass is deprecated as of October 26th, 2020

No need to mess around with installing old versions of Python, just migrate to dart.sass

For my ReactJS project (npm), the following steps worked for me:

1. Delete node_modules from the project

2. In package.json, remove this dependency:

   "dependencies": {
       …,
       "node-sass": "^3.0.0",
       …
   }
   

3. npm install --save-dev sass

4. npm install

5. Now try running your project using npm start

6. If you receive an error like "To import Sass files, you first need to install node-sass", run this command as described here:
   npm install node-sass@npm:sass

If you're using yarn, do the equivalent commands but on the last step do this instead, as described here:
yarn remove node-sass
yarn add sass

My answer might not apply to everyone. Node version: v10.16.0 NPM: 6.9.0

I was having a lot of trouble using node-sass and node-sass-middleware. They are interesting packages because they are widely used (millions of downloads weekly), but their githubs show a limited dependencies and coverage. I was updating an older platform I'd been working on.

What I ended up having to do was:

1) Manually Delete node_modules

2) Manually Delete package-lock.json

3) sudo npm install node-sass --unsafe-perm=true --allow-root

4) sudo npm install node-sass-middleware --unsafe-perm=true --allow-root

I had the following help, thanks!

Pre-built binaries not found for [email protected] and [email protected]

Error: EACCES: permission denied when trying to install ESLint using npm

I'm on a Windows 11 machine, and to fix it I downloaded python27 myself, using this link: https://www.python.org/download/releases/2.7/.

And after installed I ran this command:

npm config set python c:\python27\python.exe

Hey I got this error resolved by following the steps

• first I uninstalled python 3.8.6 (latest version)
• then I installed python 2.7.1 (any Python 2 version will work, but not much older and this is recommended)
• then I added c:\python27 to environment variables
• my OS is windows, so I followed this link
• It worked

Worked for me in 2022, actually we can install python 2.7 through npm After the installation for python 2.7, we can force to run npm install with using python 2.7

Sass

1. npm install --global windows-build-tools --save
2. npm install --python=python2.7

This is 2 years old, but none of them helped me.

I uninstalled my NodeJS v12.8.1 (Current) and installed a brand new v10.16.3 (LTS) and my ng build --prod worked.

I had node 15.x.x , and "node-sass": "^4.11.0". I saw in the release notes from node-sass and saw the node higest version compatible with node-sass 4.11.0 was 11, so I uninstalled node and reinstall 11.15.0 version (I'm working with Windows). Check node-sass releases. (this is what you should see in the node-sass releases.)

Hope that helps and sorry for my english :)

Here is what helped me to prevent the error Error: not found: python2 when running a project based on the old node-gyp v3.8.0.

1. Run npm install --global --production [email protected]
2. Rename python.exe to python2.exe in %USERPROFILE%\.windows-build-tools\python27
3. Make sure that %USERPROFILE%\.windows-build-tools\python27 is part of your PATH environment variable (this is what windows-build-tools should already do for you)
4. Download Visual Studio 2017 Build Tools
5. Tell npm to use VS 2017 with npm config set msvs_version 2017
6. Run the script which uses node-gyp (node-gyp will now find python2.exe)

Alternative: Force upgrade of node-gyp

You can also try to upgrade your project to use node-gyp v8.0.0 instead of node-gyp v3.8.0. In this case, add the following resolution entry to your package.json:

  "resolutions": {
    "node-gyp": "8.0.0"
  }

Afterwards, make sure that you have Python 3 installed and Visual Studio 2017 Build Tools and/or Visual Studio 2019 Build Tools. You can also run npm config delete msvs_version to let node-gyp automatically detect your VS version.

Tested with:

• Windows 10 Pro Build 19042.985
• Node.js v15.14.0
• npm v7.7.6
• node-gyp -v v3.8.0.

had the same issue lost hours trying to install different version of python on my PC. Simply Upgrade node to the latest version v8.11.2 and npm 5.6.0, then after install [email protected] and you'll be fine.

We encountered this problem in 2021 when setting up a new TeamCity build agent. Originally we had installed nodejs using Chocolatey. We reinstalled going back to the original installer node-v12.12.0-x64.msi. The third screen in the installer dialog offers to install the tools necessary to compile native modules:

After doing this our problem was gone.

None of the above answers solved my problem, it was way simpler than i tought.

Simply downgrade your node version to match the node-sass version:

nvm list

nvm use <node-version>

After looking at all the answers, i notice this solution might be very helpful. It explains how to configure "npm" to find your installed python version while installing node-sass. Remember, node-sass requires node-gyp (an npm build-tool) which looks for your python path. Or just install python, and follow the same solution given (in the link). Thanks.

In case of yarn projects, ignoring the node version with "yarn install --ignore-engines" will install any node-sass v. without these python errors

Python2 maintenance status is "end of life" so it not installed by default on new ubuntu releases.

Installing the latest python2.7 worked fine for me.

Here is the instructions to install it:

• download python2.7: https://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.18/Python-2.7.18.tgz
• Install from the .tgz downloaded:

tar -xf Python-2.7.18.tgz
cd Python-2.7.18
./configure --enable-optimizations
sudo make altinstall

Open a new terminal and try agin the npm install

Stuck through the same issue but nothing seemed to be working with me, unless I tried installing node-sass again on my global node modules config

npm install -g node-sass@6

This worked like a charm

I found the same issue with Node 12.19.0 and yarn 1.22.5 on Windows 10. I fixed the problem by installing latest stable python 64-bit with adding the path to Environment Variables during python installation. After python installation, I restarted my machine for env vars.

I am using Windows 11 and I had tried using npm i -g windows-build-tools but it stuck forever. So, what worked for me was:

1. Install Visual Studio Build tools 2017 from here.
2. After installing, open Powershell as admin.
3. Enter this command: npm install --global --production windows-build-tools --vs2015
4. Thank me later!

It fixed all errors related to build tools for me on Windows 11.

In my case, i had node version v16 installed in the machine, but the react project used node-sass version v4.x.x, Updating the package.json with node-sass version to v6.0.1 solved the issue,
node version support for node-sass can be checked from official npm page: https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-sass

A simple solution for windows 11 machines is,

• Delete package-lock.json file and node_modules/ folder.
• Open Windows Terminal as Administrator.
• Run the command npm i -g node-sass.
• Go to the project folder and run npm install
• Now run the project with npm start

Got this error on Windows 11 with latest Node.js LTS Version: 18.13.0 (includes npm 8.19.3)

https://nodejs.org/en/download/

Fixed by first downloading Python 2.7.18 manually since only Python 3.11 was installed.

https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/

https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-2718/

After install I ran the command from @bvdb:

npm config set python "C:\Python27\python.exe"

Source:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/64486670/3850405

This fixed the error

node-sass deprecated now. we need to use sass instead of node-sass. as a solution to this question, I occurred the same error. So I install the python2. node gyp finds the python2.