Offline builds stall before any real building starts

[robertlipe]

Bug report

Problem Building offline used to be possible and practical. Sometimes in recent months it's become impractical.

Steps

1. Disconnect from internet
2. Pio run target build (doesn't matter which -e)
3. Experience sadness

Example Adding a -v to the build shows is paused for a couple of minutes between displaying a list of files in assets/, a line showing build options and 80 dashes. It wanders off into the weeds then displaya "[email protected] build" and "webpack --mode production"

There's nothing that really looks like an error and making a 71k zip isn't exactly hard. LDF is slow, taking longer than just complaining everything, but this is pausing before that.

This has bugged me for several weeks, but I've been able to work around it, but I'm asking for someone else to investigate.

I think it's something in the new web UI stuff. Can one of you web wizards please see what going on at this step, before c++ compilation even starts, and see if it can play nicer in the absence of an internet connection.

Notes