node: could not initialize ICU (check NODE_ICU_DATA or --icu-data-dir parameters)

Question

I was trying to upgrade node version on our CI environment from node 6 to node 8. I updated the full-icu version as well.

the $NODE_ICU_DATA is set to /usr/lib/node_modules/full-icu

but still get this error

node: could not initialize ICU (check NODE_ICU_DATA or --icu-data-dir parameters)

Any idea, how to fix this?

score 71 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 23 '20 at 15:51

71

You need to run npm install including the full-icu package. It's full-icu's postinstall step which downloads the appropriate bits for the currently executing node. Note that multiple files may show up in the full-icu directory, that's OK.

If you already had full-icu installed, but upgraded Node.js in between:

npm rebuild

fixes the issue.

edited Jan 23 '20 at 15:51

Patrick Hund

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answered May 15 '18 at 19:41

Steven R. Loomis

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1

For others, this worked for me: `yarn add full-icu` and then `node NODE_ICU_DATA=node_modules/full-icu ...` – Alex Dec 04 '18 at 12:06
3

You can also just do the tried-and-tested method of nuking `node_modules` and reinstalling – Matt Fletcher Sep 02 '20 at 09:24
yarn add --force – Davi Lima Mar 18 '21 at 17:34

score 30 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 19 '19 at 12:15

30

If you already had full-icu installed, but did upgrade node in between:

npm rebuild does fix the issue.

answered Feb 19 '19 at 12:15

line-o

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score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 18 '19 at 14:57

If you want use Node.js with full-icu and Docker, you can use example of Dockerfile:

FROM node:lts-alpine

WORKDIR /icu
RUN npm init -y && npm install full-icu
ENV NODE_ICU_DATA=/icu/node_modules/full-icu

WORKDIR /project
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm install
COPY . .

EXPOSE 8080
CMD [ "node", "server.js" ]

It's works for me.

node: could not initialize ICU (check NODE_ICU_DATA or --icu-data-dir parameters)

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