Error: Cannot set headers after they are sent to client, occurs when trying to serve index.html, only occurs in v14.0.0

[abhimonk]

Getting the following error when trying to go to the webpage returned by "npx http-server" serving my index.html:

Error [ERR_HTTP_HEADERS_SENT]: Cannot set headers after they are sent to the client

The issue does not occur if I use version 13.0.0

(See below for full stack trace)

If I repeat the reproduction steps with version 13.0.0, it works as expected.

Environment Versions

1. OS Type: Windows
2. Node version: 6.13.4
3. http-server version: 14.0.0

Steps to reproduce

1. Have just any index.html in your current folder
2. Run "npx http-server" from the current folder
3. Navigate to the URL returned (which should trigger serving your index.html)

Expected result

My index.html should be served and the contents of it should be displayed. This works fine in version 13.0.0.

Actual result

The server crashes with the following error:

[2021-10-23T17:10:29.869Z] "GET /" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/95.0.4638.54 Safari/537.36" (node:3956) [DEP0066] DeprecationWarning: OutgoingMessage.prototype._headers is deprecated _http_outgoing.js:485 throw new ERR_HTTP_HEADERS_SENT('set');

Error [ERR_HTTP_HEADERS_SENT]: Cannot set headers after they are sent to the client at ServerResponse.setHeader (_http_outgoing.js:485:11) at module.exports.ResponseStream. [as setHeader] (C:\Users\abhim\Documents\GameDev\JSDev\AttackAnimationGenerator\node_modules\union\lib\response-stream.js:100:34) at Object.exports. (C:\Users\abhim\Documents\GameDev\JSDev\AttackAnimationGenerator\node_modules\http-server\lib\core\status-handlers.js:57:7)
at Readable. (C:\Users\abhim\Documents\GameDev\JSDev\AttackAnimationGenerator\node_modules\http-server\lib\core\index.js:339:22) at Readable.emit (events.js:210:5) at emitErrorNT (internal/streams/destroy.js:92:8) at emitErrorAndCloseNT (internal/streams/destroy.js:60:3) code: 'ERR_HTTP_HEADERS_SENT' }

Other information

I have seen the github issue https://github.com/http-party/http-server/issues/634, but it looks like their server is undergoing external traffic. I am just using my server for local testing with a simple index.html. This workflow worked fine in version 13.0.0, but when I switched to version 14.0.0 I get the above error.

[natali27]

same problem with docker node:12.10.0-alpine , now needed to set version [email protected] to fix this error

[Ronkiro]

+1, using node v12.14.0

[totszwai]

Came here for this, v14 is broken. Need to use 13.0.2...

[boarwell]

Reproduced this with Node.js v12.14.0, but not with v12.22.7 (the latest release of v12.x). As a workaround, could you update to the v12.22.7 (or higher)?

[tutanck]

Same problem here with docker node:12.11.1-alpine

[wesleycsj]

Problem is not with docker(or container versions), i faced same problem on ubuntu. http-server@14 is broken, need install 13.0.2 to get things working.

[thornjad]

Reproduced this with Node.js v12.14.0, but not with v12.22.7 (the latest release of v12.x). As a workaround, could you update to the v12.22.7 (or higher)?

This makes this sound like it may be a bug in Node, can anyone else confirm newer versions of Node work with http-server v14?

[matthias-ccri]

Seeing this on v12.13.1

[srlowe]

I'm seeing with v12.13.0

[myleshk]

Same here with v10.24.1

[thornjad]

I'm not currently able to reproduce this, tagging for help!

[joshnoe]

Can reproduce on node v12.14.1

[systa]

My node is v10.19.0 and I'm getting the same error. I will uninstall and search for other options. Simple static http-server must be so simple, that things errors this never happens - regardless of node version. Suggestion: simplify the code radically.

[ThomasDEVio]

Can reproduce on node v10.19.0, I updated to latest stable node, 16.13.2 and it works fine now! https://phoenixnap.com/kb/update-node-js-version

[zbynek]

This is hiding another error

TypeError [ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE]: The first argument must be one of type string or Buffer. Received type number
    at write_ (_http_outgoing.js:618:11)
    at ServerResponse.write (_http_outgoing.js:586:15)
    at module.exports.ResponseStream.write (/root/http-server/node_modules/union/lib/response-stream.js:186:22)
    at Readable.ondata (_stream_readable.js:722:22)
    at Readable.emit (events.js:209:13)
    at addChunk (_stream_readable.js:305:12)
    at readableAddChunk (_stream_readable.js:286:11)
    at Readable.push (_stream_readable.js:220:10)
    at next (_stream_readable.js:1218:27)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:93:5)

and is happening since https://github.com/http-party/http-server/pull/736 @boarwell 's comment about failures on Node 10 probably applies to earlier versions of Node 12 too.

The issue can be reproduced with node (using alpine docker images) up to 12.15, it's OK in 12.16.

[barryvdh]

I ran into this issue with and old AngularJS project on MacOS. I just installed http-server and it didn't work. Forcing to v13 made it work without changes.

[Tue Mar 29 2022 09:43:48 GMT+0200 (Central European Summer Time)]  "GET /" "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/98.0.4758.102 Safari/537.36"
_http_outgoing.js:470
    throw new ERR_HTTP_HEADERS_SENT('set');
    ^

Error [ERR_HTTP_HEADERS_SENT]: Cannot set headers after they are sent to the client
    at ServerResponse.setHeader (_http_outgoing.js:470:11)
    at module.exports.ResponseStream.(anonymous function) [as setHeader] (/Users/barry/Sites/app/node_modules/union/lib/response-stream.js:100:34)
    at Object.exports.(anonymous function) (/Users/barry/Sites/app/node_modules/http-server/lib/core/status-handlers.js:57:7)
    at Readable.stream.on (/Users/barry/Sites/app/node_modules/http-server/lib/core/index.js:339:22)
    at Readable.emit (events.js:198:13)
    at emitErrorNT (internal/streams/destroy.js:91:8)
    at emitErrorAndCloseNT (internal/streams/destroy.js:59:3)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:63:19)

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue has been inactive for 180 days

[Ronkiro]

bump, i think this still needs a solution

[KissBalazs]

Switching from node:10 to node:16 solved this issue for me.