Axios error: ... .data.pipe is not a function

Question

So I am basically trying to use axios to download a image from a url, but I get this error:

TypeError: streamResponse.data.pipe is not a function

My function for doing this image download is below (note that this is inside a class):

/**
 * Download poster
 */
async downloadPoster() {

    // Writer stream where we want to download the poster image
    const writer = fs.createWriteStream(this.poster.file);

    // This grabs the second part of the image url that we want
    const resultsResponse = await axios({
        url: this.poster.url,
        method: 'GET',
        responseType: 'json',
        adapter: httpAdapter
    });

    // Zero results
    if (resultsResponse.data.total_results <= 0) {
        logger.log(language[Config.language].posterNotFound + this.movie.title, 'error');
        return false;
    }

    // Create the poster download URL
    var posterDownloadUrl = new URL(Config.api.posterUrl + resultsResponse.data.results[0].poster_path);

    const streamResponse = await axios({
        url: posterDownloadUrl,
        method: 'GET',
        responseType: 'stream',
        adapter: xhrAdapter
    });

    // Write data
    streamResponse.data.pipe(writer);

    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
        writer.on('finish', resolve);
        writer.on('error', reject);
    });

}

I assume that the adapter for a stream response is the xhr one. Anyways, I have tried both adapters and both gives the exact same error. Both requests does happen though (I can see them in the devtools).

And so there's no confusion, I have the adapters imported at the top of the file:

const httpAdapter = require('axios/lib/adapters/http');
const xhrAdapter = require('axios/lib/adapters/xhr');

What could I be doing wrong here?

Answer 1

Got it working by sending the download request over to the main thread. Don't know why, but seems you can't access the axios data from a stream in the renderer.js file. Got it working now though after having a look here:

https://www.electronjs.org/docs/api/ipc-main

Answer 2

here is a simpler version of your code.

Code:

const downloadImage = async (url) => {
    // Writer stream where we want to download the image
    const writer = fs.createWriteStream("./image.png");

    const streamResponse = await axios({
        url,
        method: 'GET',

        // that the point!!!
        // change responseType to stream
        // pipe only work with 'stream'
        responseType: 'stream'
    });

    // Write data
    streamResponse.data.pipe(writer);

    writer.on('finish', () => console.log("Finished"));
    writer.on('error', () => console.error("Error while dowloading image"));
}
const imageLink = "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b6/Image_created_with_a_mobile_phone.png/1200px-Image_created_with_a_mobile_phone.png";
downloadImage(imageLink);

Answer 3

if you use electron this is an alternative. in quasar it works perfectly. Remember to put in the main.js of electron nodeIntegration = true

const fs = require('fs-extra');
import path from 'path';

let url = 'yourl.com';
axios({
        url,
        method: 'GET',
        responseType: 'blob'
}).then((res) => {
    let fileName='myfile.zip'

    const dir = path.dirname(__dirname);
    const Path = path.resolve(`${dir}/dir`, 'subdir', fileName);

    const output = fs.createWriteStream(Path);
    const ws = new WritableStream(output)        

    let blob = new Blob([res.data], {type: 'application/zip'})
    
    const stream =  blob.stream();
    
    //optional
    //stream.pipeTo(ws).then(console.log('Done!!!'));

    stream.pipeTo(ws);
  })

Answer 4

You must be added responseType as AxiosRequestConfig not header

 const response = await axios(`${url}/api/v1/rest/export`, {
      method: 'POST',
      responseType: 'stream',
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        Authorization: authToken.includes('Bearer') ? authToken : `Bearer ${authToken}`,
      },
      data: query,
    });
    response.data.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('./export.csv'));