Test suite failed to run...Cannot find module '../build/Release/canvas.node'

Question

Jest is not able to find the package canvas in dependencies even though it is present. yarn run test is failing with the following error.

packages/first/src/layouts/EventsTable.spec.tsx
  ● Test suite failed to run

    Cannot find module '../build/Release/canvas.node'
    Require stack:
    - /Users/abc/Documents/monorepo/node_modules/canvas/lib/bindings.js
    - /Users/abc/Documents/monorepo/node_modules/canvas/lib/canvas.js
    - /Users/abc/Documents/monorepo/node_modules/canvas/index.js
    - /Users/abc/Documents/monorepo/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom/utils.js
    - /Users/abc/Documents/monorepo/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom/living/events/MouseEvent-impl.js
    - /Users/abc/Documents/monorepo/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom/living/generated/MouseEvent.js
    - /Users/abc/Documents/monorepo/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom/living/events/EventTarget-impl.js
    - /Users/abc/Documents/monorepo/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom/living/aborting/AbortSignal-impl.js
    - /Users/abc/Documents/monorepo/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom/living/generated/AbortSignal.js
    - /Users/abc/Documents/monorepo/node_modules/jsdom/lib/jsdom/living/generated/AddEventListenerOptions.js
......

Canvas is installed and present in the dependency list.

yarn why canvas 

└─ pdfjs-dist@npm:3.11.174
   └─ canvas@npm:2.11.2 (via npm:^2.11.2)

Tried removing all packages rm -rf node_modules and reinstalled, the problem still persists.

Node version - v18.16.1
yarn version - v3.2.3

Answer 1

Try to check if canvas was actually installed and exists in node_modules. (for me it was not installed and both pdfjs-dist and react-pdf didn't complain.)

Running npm ci was working fine for me but having npm ci --ignore-scripts was causing (silent) problems as scripts are required to make it work.

npm rebuild canvas could be used after npm ci --ignore-scripts to fix that problem.

btw: when trying to install it manually by

npm install canvas

I got an error and has to apply manual command described here first: https://github.com/Automattic/node-canvas?tab=readme-ov-file#installation

and then installing canvas worked and tests passed.

if you are running into similar problem on Jenkins (using docker and alpine image) you might check this page (which helped me):

https://github.com/node-gfx/node-canvas-prebuilt/issues/77#issuecomment-884365161