npm run build freezes – how to debug this? – CPanel

I have a node.js app that is working fine when I run it with npm start but when I try to build it the process freezes. This is what I see:

$ npm run build

> [email protected] build /home/ppdevts4/public_html/reactsearch
> react-scripts build

Creating an optimized production build...

I can leave it for 2 hours or 2 days and it never changes.
On the server I can see that the CPU peaks at about 30%, RAM at about 10% and Input/Output usage at about 50%. So it does not seem like resources are a problem.

I found a file called error_log in public_html and no new entries have been added to it after I ran npm run build.

Any suggests how to debug this please?
I’m new to node.js.

Thanks,
Phil

Updated …

After removing server limits the script now ends with an error. This is what I see in the debug.log in .npm/_logs folder:

0 info it worked if it ends with ok
1 verbose cli [ '/home/ppdevts4/bin/node', '/home/ppdevts4/bin/npm', 'run', 'build' ]
2 info using [email protected]
3 info using [email protected]
4 verbose run-script [ 'prebuild', 'build', 'postbuild' ]
5 info lifecycle [email protected]~prebuild: [email protected]
6 info lifecycle [email protected]~build: [email protected]
7 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~build: unsafe-perm in lifecycle true
8 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~build: PATH: /home/ppdevts4/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/node-gyp-bin:/home/ppdevts4/public_html/reactsearch/node_modules/.bin:/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/lib/path-bin:/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/lib/path-bin:/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/lib/path-bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/opt/cpanel/composer/bin:/home/ppdevts4/.local/bin:/home/ppdevts4/bin
9 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~build: CWD: /home/ppdevts4/public_html/reactsearch
10 silly lifecycle [email protected]~build: Args: [ '-c', 'react-scripts build' ]
11 silly lifecycle [email protected]~build: Returned: code: 1  signal: null
12 info lifecycle [email protected]~build: Failed to exec build script
13 verbose stack Error: [email protected] build: `react-scripts build`
13 verbose stack Exit status 1
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.<anonymous> (/home/ppdevts4/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/index.js:332:16)
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:209:13)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/home/ppdevts4/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/lib/spawn.js:55:14)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:209:13)
13 verbose stack     at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:1021:16)
13 verbose stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:283:5)
14 verbose pkgid [email protected]
15 verbose cwd /home/ppdevts4/public_html/reactsearch
16 verbose Linux 3.10.0-962.3.2.lve1.5.25.10.el7.x86_64
17 verbose argv "/home/ppdevts4/bin/node" "/home/ppdevts4/bin/npm" "run" "build"
18 verbose node v12.9.1
19 verbose npm  v6.12.0
20 error code ELIFECYCLE
21 error errno 1
22 error [email protected] build: `react-scripts build`
22 error Exit status 1
23 error Failed at the [email protected] build script.
23 error This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
24 verbose exit [ 1, true ]

Another post said npm install react-scripts --save might fix it but the error log is the same afterwards.

Any suggestions how to fix this error?

Updated 14 Oct 2019

I created a t3.s instance on AWS with 8 CPUs and 32GB RAM and it gave a similar error so it does not seem like this is caused by lack of memory.

Here is the log:

0 info it worked if it ends with ok
1 verbose cli [ '/home/ec2-user/bin/node', '/home/ec2-user/bin/npm', 'run', 'build' ]
2 info using [email protected]
3 info using [email protected]
4 verbose run-script [ 'prebuild', 'build', 'postbuild' ]
5 info lifecycle [email protected]~prebuild: [email protected]
6 info lifecycle [email protected]~build: [email protected]
7 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~build: unsafe-perm in lifecycle true
8 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~build: PATH: /home/ec2-user/nodejs/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/node-gyp-bin:/home/ec2-user/public_html/reactsearch/node_modules/.bin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/aws/bin:/home/ec2-user/.local/bin:/home/ec2-user/bin
9 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~build: CWD: /home/ec2-user/public_html/reactsearch
10 silly lifecycle [email protected]~build: Args: [ '-c', 'react-scripts build' ]
11 silly lifecycle [email protected]~build: Returned: code: 1  signal: null
12 info lifecycle [email protected]~build: Failed to exec build script
13 verbose stack Error: [email protected] build: `react-scripts build`
13 verbose stack Exit status 1
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.<anonymous> (/home/ec2-user/nodejs/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/index.js:326:16)
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:209:13)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/home/ec2-user/nodejs/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/lib/spawn.js:55:14)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:209:13)
13 verbose stack     at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:1021:16)
13 verbose stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:283:5)
14 verbose pkgid [email protected]
15 verbose cwd /home/ec2-user/public_html/reactsearch
16 verbose Linux 4.14.146-93.123.amzn1.x86_64
17 verbose argv "/home/ec2-user/bin/node" "/home/ec2-user/bin/npm" "run" "build"
18 verbose node v12.9.1
19 verbose npm  v6.10.2
20 error code ELIFECYCLE
21 error errno 1
22 error [email protected] build: `react-scripts build`
22 error Exit status 1
23 error Failed at the [email protected] build script.
23 error This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
24 verbose exit [ 1, true ]