Error: spawn ENOENT when running imagemin task

[msguerra74]

I'm getting the following error when running imagemin. I'm not sure why, but it looks like it's adding a tmp folder inside the 'grunt-jekyll' task? I've tried running it independent of any other task and the same error occurs. After crashing, it leaves some of the images in the output folder with '.tmp' extensions (ex: image.png.tmp). Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Running "imagemin:images" (imagemin) task

D:\Dropbox\Projects\automata\node_modules\grunt-jekyll\node_modules\tmp\lib\tmp.js:261
  throw err;
        ^
Error: spawn ENOENT
  at errnoException (child_process.js:980:11)
  at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (child_process.js:771:34)

[ngarland79]

Same for me, when I do a grunt build, I get this:

Running "imagemin:dist" (imagemin) task
app/images/bos_header.jpg (saved 3.99 kB)

/Users/ngarland1/Projects/bouleutai/node_modules/grunt-contrib-compass/node_modules/tmp/lib/tmp.js:261
  throw err;
        ^
Error: spawn ENOENT
    at errnoException (child_process.js:980:11)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (child_process.js:771:34)

[msguerra74]

It looks like it's backing out of it's own directory and into an adjacent one or something. This also only seems to happen with PNGs.

[msguerra74]

I was updating my NPMs today and noticed a popup from Microsoft Security Essentials giving the following notice, stating it's quarantining a file (optipng.exe) it believes to be a virus, which is probably why this problem has been occurring. Apparently this has been happening for the last couple of weeks, so I've left the file quarantined until further notice. Any thoughts on this?

[vladikoff]

Duplicate of imagemin/optipng-bin#12

[msguerra74]

I've removed the quarantined "optipng.exe" file, disabled the virus program, removed all node_modules and reinstalled, and am still getting the same error. I even disabled all imagemin options and this is what it's telling me when running 'grunt imagemin --vebose'

Running tasks: imagemin

Running "imagemin" task

Running "imagemin:images" (imagemin) task
Verifying property imagemin.images exists in config...OK
Files: Projects/_example.com/_assets/images/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png ->
Projects/_example.com/assets/img/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png
Options: optimizationLevel=0, progressive=false, pngquant, interlaced=false, pngquaint=false
Reading Projects/_example.com/_assets/images/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png...OK

D:\Dropbox\Projects\automata\node_modules\grunt-jekyll\node_modules\tmp\lib\tmp.js:261
  throw err;
        ^
Error: spawn ENOENT
    at errnoException (child_process.js:980:11)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (child_process.js:771:34)
PS D:\Dropbox\Projects\automata>

[oxtoacart]

I'm getting this error on OS X. It looks like imagemin looks for the pngquant binary in node_modules/pngquant-bin/vendor/pngquant. Unfortunately, as of version 0.1.4 of pngquant-bin, that binary is in a different location.

I believe that the solution is to update package.json to reference a specific version of pngquant-bin instead of any 0.1 version. I tried 0.1.3 and it worked for me.

[msguerra74]

Everything in my build process works flawlessly and I only ever have problems with grunt-contrib-imagemin, so my conclusion is that this is pretty much worthless on Windows machines. I still get the spawn error, so bleh... I'm done.

[stowball]

This still chokes on JPEGs using jpegtran-bin 0.2.3 and grunt-contrib-imagemin 0.5.0. Tested on Win 8.1 Pro 64 bit. It's a tad frustrating

[JBusch]

Same issues here. Also Win 8.1 64bit.

[rikvanmechelen]

+1 on Win 8.1 64bit

[fitzchak]

+1, it fails on Win 8.1 x64

[Guuz]

So what now? I'm on Win 8.1 64 bit and I am having this problem. Any workarounds or alternatives? Or just no image optimization for me anymore? :-/
Other people on my team run other OS'es so its really annoying that I can not build...

[vladikoff]

@Guuz tried falling back to ~0.4?

[Guuz]

@vladikoff no, I will give that a try!

[stowball]

@vladikoff I was on 0.4.0 and it didn’t work, which is why I tried upgrading to 0.5.0. No dice ☹

[Guuz]

@vladikoff : Strange... We were actually on v0.3.0. I have just upgraded to v0.5.0 and this works for us on Win 7, Win 8.1 and mac. v0.4.0 also worked.

[BlueInt32]

Hi,
The problem occured to me with png files using the latest 0.5.0 version (default npm install version btw) of grunt-imagemin-contrib, then I tried what Guuz suggested with previous version (0.4.1 seems to be stable) and this worked again.

I guess switching versions could make it work...

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Has this problem being fixed? I still have it: with version 0.3.0 it's present in one directory and NOT present in another, so it's a package dependency breaking everything... If I copy imagemin package from an older project (always 0.3.0 version), this works fine. I'm trying to find out what's causing it.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I can say the cause is pngquant-bin module. I couldn't track it down to a submodule because after specifying a version, it's auto-fixed:

{
    "pngquant-bin": "0.1.6",
    "gifsicle": "0.1.4",
    "jpegtran-bin": "0.2.3",
    "optipng-bin": "0.3.1",
    "pngquant-bin": "0.1.6",
    "grunt-contrib-imagemin": "0.3.0"
}

This in my package.json fixed the issue

Important note: specify those in your package.json, CLEAN node_modules directory (completely, even .bin directory), restart your computer, I think it's an issue with environment or a link to an exe that doesn't exist, I don't know, but I didn't want to track it down so restarting was ok (one time). After restart, run npm install and it should work.

My full package.json if anyone interested: https://gist.github.com/Fire-Dragon-DoL/407c4823af0d7811cfa9

[patik]

I fixed it by following @Fire-Dragon-DoL's advice directly above. Then I followed this comment's instructions. Finally, I did npm install -g gifsicle and npm install -g node-optipng and copied those folders to my project's /node_modules/grunt-contrib-imagemin/node_modules folder, similar to jpegtrain. This is for Windows 7 32-bit.

[vlrprbttst]

i've been struggling with imagemin in general from so long on so many issues i might go back to some simpler GUI like prepros or something

[kevva]

@vlrprbttst, that isn't very helpful. Could you describe what problems you are experiencing?

[vlrprbttst]

my latest problem is this: http://prntscr.com/4dcsqk
prior to this i tried to make the watch task go togheter with imagemin, trying to make it optimize only the newer pictures in my source folder and failed at that (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24099367/imagemin-for-gruntjs-used-with-watch-for-grunt-not-properly-watching-my-files) too. but i may be off-topic here, sorry for that

[patik]

Ultimately, the problem is that you cannot simply run npm install grunt-contrib-imagemin and expect it to work, at least not on Windows. You have to fiddle around with each individual optimizer (optipng, etc) — see my comment above.

Also, at least in my experience you can't simply run npm update on a project once you've gotten imagemin working. I did so but luckily I had a backup of my node_modules folder.

[kevva]

The watch task isn't related to imagemin, it's just how that one works. The spawn issue is caused by some binary not existing. Try installing a newer version of imagemin (^1.0.0).

I have no problems whatsoever on Windows. Most of the issues are with Linux.

[wethinkagile]

This is latest Mac Yosemite, date is March 2015. Installed imagemin as well as pngquant latest version. Not working, failing with error message provided by the thread creator.

[SamJacobs]

Installing earlier version of contrib-imagemin fixed it for me. I picked one at random. used 0.4.0, grunt build worked

[jzaric]

@SamJacobs Worked for me. I was using 0.8.0 and it started working when I installed 0.7.0

[binarykitchen]

Okay, I found out when this is happening: when the prebuild-test failed and thus is compiling from the source, see extract below:

  ⚠ Couldn't connect to https://raw.github.com/imagemin/optipng-bin/v2.0.4/vendor/linux/x64/optipng (503)
  ⚠ optipng pre-build test failed
  ℹ compiling from source
  ✖ Error: ./configure --with-system-zlib --prefix="/var/www/signdna-video/live/source/node_modules/grunt-contrib-imagemin/node_modules/imagemin/node_modules/imagemin-optipng/node_modules/optipng-bin/vendor" --bindir="/var/www/signdna-video/live/source/node_modules/grunt-contrib-imagemin/node_modules/imagemin/node_modules/imagemin-optipng/node_modules/optipng-bin/vendor" && make install
Command failed: 
    at ChildProcess.exithandler (child_process.js:648:15)
    at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:98:17)
    at maybeClose (child_process.js:756:16)
    at Socket.<anonymous> (child_process.js:969:11)
    at Socket.emit (events.js:95:17)
    at Pipe.close (net.js:465:12)

This happened during instable network conditions which is not the real issue here. The problem is that compiling from source results in a different state than when doing the pre-build. Both ways should make the code behave the same.

[schmod]

I'm having a similar issue with jpegtran failing to build, likely due to Github's network problems...

The real underlying issue seems to be that optipng and jpegtran's build scripts can fail "silently," without cascading upwards to imagemin/grunt-imagemin.

[schmod]

I've opened a PR in jpegtran-bin that will hopefully cause compilation errors to propogate upward, so that the NPM module doesn't trick any dependent packages into believing that it was installed successfully.

[kevva]

@schmod, that's exactly what we want. They are optional dependencies. Be aware of any error messages when installing instead.

[schmod]

I left a comment in the other thread.

Essentially, I don't think that's actually a desirable behavior, as it bypasses npm's built-in infrastructure for handling optional dependencies, and effectively makes imagemin and grunt-contrib-imagemin unsafe to use in a scripted environment, as it doesn't provide any reliable mechanism to determine whether or not everything installed correctly.

imagemin already has logic to gracefully treat jpegtran-bin as an optional dependency, but that logic is worthless if jpegtran-bin's build script doesn't report failures.

[patternboxtech]

Ran into this issue with "grunt-contrib-imagemin": "^0.8.1". Updated to "grunt-contrib-imagemin": "^0.9.4" fixed my issue.

[sbley]

Updating "grunt-contrib-imagemin" from "^0.9.2" to "^0.9.4" fixed my issue.