Error during the building 'node-canvas' on arm64 M1 CPU

Question

I'm getting the following error on Mac with M1 CPU:

I'm unable to build nodejs app with 'node-canvas' npm package, because Error: dlopen(/Users/..../node_modules/canvas/build/Release/canvas.node, 0x0001): tried: '/Users/..../node_modules/canvas/build/Release/canvas.node' (mach-o file, but is an incompatible architecture (have 'arm64', need 'x86_64')), '/System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OS/..../node_modules/canvas/build/Release/canvas.node' (no such file), '/Users/..../node_modules/canvas/build/Release/canvas.node' (mach-o file, but is an incompatible architecture (have 'arm64', need 'x86_64'))

I installed brew canvas dependencies: brew install pkg-config cairo pango libpng jpeg giflib librsvg pixman

I also set following path: export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/pixman/lib/pkgconfig"

I also tried to rebuild from source-codes: npm install --build-from-source

I also removed and installed again canvas package:

rm -rf node_modules package-lock.json npm install

But still I'm getting the same error related to arm64 architecture.

notice:

nodejs is installed with nvm
nodejs version: v22.11.0
nvm version: 0.39.7

Thanks for help.

Answer 1

To fix the node-canvas build issue on your M1 Mac:

Reinstall Node.js for ARM64:

nvm uninstall v22.11.0
arch -arm64 nvm install v22.11.0

Install Dependencies for ARM64:

brew install pkg-config cairo pango libpng jpeg giflib librsvg pixman

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/opt/homebrew/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/homebrew/opt/pixman/lib/pkgconfig"

Clean Reinstall Canvas:

rm -rf node_modules package-lock.json
npm install
npm rebuild canvas --build-from-source

for result

node -e "require('canvas')"

Answer 2

The problem was found with Meteor nodejs, which after update was change from arm64 to incorrect x64 platform. Current nodejs platform you can simple validate by: meteor node -p "process.arch" (correct result for M1: arm64)

If the result is incorrect (x64) continue by following steps:

1. Reinstall Meteor.js

cd
rm -rf meteor
curl https://install.meteor.com/\?release\=3.1 | sh
cd <your project folder>
rm -rf node_modules package-lock.json
meteor update
meteor update --all-packages
meteor npm install

2. Install canvas prerequisities

brew install pkg-config cairo pango libpng jpeg giflib librsvg pixman

3. Install and rebuild canvas package

meteor npm install canvas
meteor npm rebuild canvas --from-source-code

4. Validate canvas package

node -e "require('canvas')"
// result must be empty (without Error message)

Thanks a lot for help to @errorau