Troubleshooting installation

If better-sqlite3 refuses to install, follow these guidelines:

Use the latest version of better-sqlite3

Check the releases page to make sure you're using the latest and greatest.

Install a recent Node.js

Make sure you're using a supported version of Node.js. better-sqlite3 is only tested with currently-supported versions of Node.js.

"Install the necessary tools"

If you're on Windows, during installation of Node.js, be sure to select "Automatically install the necessary tools" from the "Tools for Native Modules" page.
If you missed this when you installed Node.js, double-click C:\Program Files\nodejs\install_tools.bat from the File Explorer or run it in a terminal.

This will open an administrative PowerShell terminal and installing Chocolatey, Visual Studio, and Python.

This may take several minutes.

No special characters in your project path

Make sure there are no spaces in your project path: node-gyp may not escape spaces or special characters (like % or $) properly.

Electron

If you're using Electron, use electron-rebuild.
If you're using an app.asar bundle, be sure all native libraries are "unpacked". If you're using electron-forge, you should use the auto-unpack-natives plugin

Windows

If you still have issues, try these steps:

Delete your node_modules subdirectory
Delete your $HOME/.node-gyp directory
Run npm install

Still stuck?

Browse previous installation issues.