@protobuf-ts/protoc installed globally hangs when run

[dwosk]

Running into an issue when trying to run protoc after installing the package globally.

Installation works:

$ npm install -g @protobuf-ts/protoc

changed 1 package, and audited 2 packages in 601ms

found 0 vulnerabilities

But I'm unable to run the resulting binary (script):

$ protoc --version

Running protoc just hangs.

I'm not sure if installing it globally is supported or not - it works fine when installed locally on a per-project basis.

$ which protoc
/Users/dwosk/.nvm/versions/node/v16.15.0/bin/protoc

Thanks!

[ColinLaws]

I always make sure to run protoc using npx.

# with npm:
npx protoc --version 

# with yarn:
yarn protoc --version 

Also, if you're just looking to compile some .proto files, I'd recommend just doing apt install -y protobuf-compiler to install the protobuf-compiler. I wasn't sure if you were using anything else out of this package, so I figured to mention that just in case.

[dwosk]

Thanks for the response @ColinLaws.

We're doing stuff cross-platform and in different environments (i.e. developer machine vs. CI) and being able to install the protoc compiler just by declaring a single npm dependency is really nice. I'm also using tonic in Rust so I'm a bit limited in how I can run protoc (can't prefix with npx I don't think).

That being said, I actually did get things working on a per-project basis:

1. npm install -D @protobuf-ts/protoc
2. Before compiling with tonic, set the PROTOC environment variable:

std::env::set_var("PROTOC", "../node_modules/.bin/protoc");

So far seems to be working great 🤷‍♂️

[vuki656]

I had the same problem. The lib is supposed to install it out of the box and for example yarn protoc ... should work but it says protoc is not a known command.

When installing the @protobuf-ts/protoc as a dep then it hangs as mentioned here.

I ended up doing "generate:proto-ts": "./node_modules/.bin/protoc --ts_out ... and it works fine.

[Janrupf]

I guess this is an issue with yarn and this package.

I observed the following:

• yarn sets up a temporary directory which contains the bin executables from package.json files
• yarn starts the protoc.js script (through the wrapper binary from previous step)
• protoc.js searches the PATH, which also contains the temporary directory, finding itself
• protoc.js starts the executable from the PATH, which means its now starting itself

(I should probably mention that I'm using yarn v4 with pnp mode)