npm behind a proxy fails with status 403

OK, so within minutes after posting the question, I found the answer myself here: https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/2119#issuecomment-5321857

The issue seems to be that npm is not that great with HTTPS over a proxy. Changing the registry URL from HTTPS to HTTP fixed it for me:

npm config set registry http://registry.npmjs.org/

I still have to provide the proxy config (through Authoxy in my case), but everything works fine now.

Seems to be a common issue, but not well documented. I hope this answer here will make it easier for people to find if they run into this issue.

npm config set proxy http://proxy.company.com:8080
npm config set https-proxy http://proxy.company.com:8080

credit goes to http://jjasonclark.com/how-to-setup-node-behind-web-proxy.

If you need to provide a username and password to authenticate at your proxy, this is the syntax to use:

npm config set proxy http://usr:pwd@host:port
npm config set https-proxy http://usr:pwd@host:port

If anyone else ends up breaking their proxy config settings go to your .npmrc, to type in the settings. This file is located at your node root folder level.

Here's whats my corrected file looks like:

#proxy = http://proxy.company.com:8080
https-proxy = https://proxy.company.com:8080 
registry = http://registry.npmjs.org/

In my case, I read the registry that npm using:

 npm config get registry

and I got

http://registry.npmjs.org/

then I had just changed http to https like this:

npm config set registry https://registry.npmjs.org/

Due to security violations, organizations may have their own repositories.

set your local repo as below.

npm config set registry https://yourorg-artifactory.com/

I hope this will solve the issue.

For those using Jenkins or other CI server: it matters where you define your proxies, especially when they're different in your local development environment and the CI environment. In this case:

don't define proxies in project's .npmrc file. Or if you do, be sure to override the settings on CI server.

any other proxy settings might cause 403 Forbidden with little hint to the fact that you're using the wrong proxy. Check your gradle.properties or such and fix/override as necessary.

TLDR: define proxies not in the project but on the machine you're working on.

I had the same issue and finally it was resolved by disconnecting from all VPN .

On windows 10, do

npm config edit

This will open config file in a text editor. Delete all the set proxy variables by user and only let default values stay.

;;;;
; npm userconfig file
; this is a simple ini-formatted file
; lines that start with semi-colons are comments.
; read `npm help config` for help on the various options
;;;;

--->Delete everything proxy settings from here.

;;;;
; all options with default values
;;;;

Close and save. Try again. That's what worked for me in my localhost.

On windows10, create this file. Worked for me.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/XLCRq.png