node-gyp rebuild not working on MacOS Catalina Beta without reinstalling CommandLineTools

[nnmrts]

• Node Version: v8.16.1 & v12.7.0
• Platform: Darwin macbook 19.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 19.0.0: Tue Jul 23 01:19:36 PDT 2019; root:xnu-6153.0.103.151.1~4/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
• Compiler: Apple clang version 11.0.0 (clang-1100.0.33.5)
  Target: x86_64-apple-darwin19.0.0
  Thread model: posix
  InstalledDir: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin
• Module: any module...

Verbose output (from npm or node-gyp):

No receipt for 'com.apple.pkg.CLTools_Executables' found at '/'.

No receipt for 'com.apple.pkg.DeveloperToolsCLILeo' found at '/'.

No receipt for 'com.apple.pkg.DeveloperToolsCLI' found at '/'.

gyp: No Xcode or CLT version detected!

Yes, I know, it's obvious that there are some bugs on a beta OS, but I just wanted to share the solution because I couldn't find anything by googling.

To run node-gyp, you need to do this: xcode-select --install first, but if you already installed the command line tools in the past, this command will just output:

xcode-select: error: command line tools are already installed, use "Software Update" to install updates

Using "Software Update" as suggested, won't fix this problem. You have to uninstall the command line tools first by deleting this folder:
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools
reference

After doing that, you need to run xcode-select --install again and everything should work now.

However, even though node-gyp now finds your command line tools, it will still fail if you use a node version higher than v8.16.1, so consider downgrading to that momentarily (by using nvm for example...).

[cclauss]

See #1779

[nnmrts]

@cclauss Thanks, but that issue isn't really related to mine, regarding the xcode command line tools stuff.

[cclauss]

Second paragraph of #1779 (comment)

I also don't think we're going to be in a position to provide any support for Catalina until it's actually released, we hardly have the people + bandwidth to deal with supported operating systems. Sorry.

[nnmrts]

@cclauss Oh, sorry, thanks. Alright, good to know the status about that, but as I said, just wanted to share the current "workaround" in my issue until Catalina is released.

[NickNaso]

I want report that re-installing the command line tools worked for me. Thanks.

[cclauss]

Related to #1854... I am narrowing in on it.

[cclauss]

I believe that #1890 fixed this. Please reverify.

[nnmrts]

@cclauss Should fix it, but I'm not sure how people that used the workaround described here would be able to reverify this, because you basically have to downgrade your command line tools, or better said "anti-upgrade" them. I think this workaround is a one-way thing, or at least a very hard to revert change.

Also, the group of users who ran and and will run into this issue is probably pretty small. My suggestion is to leave this issue open until Catalina is finally released, then close it.

EDIT:
To avoid misunderstandings, I'm not saying that there are "not enough" users of neither the MacOS Beta, nor Python 3, nor node-gyp version 5.0.0 to 5.0.3. But I think being a user of all three things in this specific timeframe is pretty rare.

[nnmrts]

Catalina is here, yay!