Destroying the response body stream does not abort the request in node-fetch v2

[emcsween]

In node-fetch v3, if the response body stream is destroyed before the request completes, the request is aborted. This is useful when piping the body into another stream using pipeline():

const response = await fetch(...)
pipeline(response.body, fs.createWriteStream(...))

If an error occurs, pipeline() destroys response.body, which in turn aborts the request.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work in node-fetch v2.

Reproduction

This script requests a large file and immediately destroys the response body stream:

import { setTimeout } from 'node:timers/promises'
import fetch from 'node-fetch'

console.log("PID:", process.pid)
// Any large file will do
const url = 'https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Sunset_2007-1.jpg'
const response = await fetch(url)
response.body.destroy()
await setTimeout(100000)

With node-fetch v2, a socket stays open. (I verify this with ss -tnp | grep pid=PID)

With node-fetch v3, this doesn't happen.

Your Environment

software	version
node-fetch	2.6.11
node	16.14.2
npm	8.5.0
Operating System	Ubuntu 22.04

Additional context

As a workaround, one can use an AbortController to abort the request when the response body is closed. Something like:

const ctrl = new AbortController()
const response = await fetch(url, { signal: ctrl.signal })
response.body.on('close', () => {
  if (!response.bodyUsed) {
    ctrl.abort()
  }
})

But it would be nicer if node-fetch did that automatically instead.

[Yungser]

In node-fetch v3, if the response body stream is destroyed before the request completes, the request is aborted. This is useful when piping the body into another stream using pipeline():

const response = await fetch(...)
pipeline(response.body, fs.createWriteStream(...))

If an error occurs, pipeline() destroys response.body, which in turn aborts the request.

Unfortunately, this doesn't work in node-fetch v2.

Reproduction

This script requests a large file and immediately destroys the response body stream:

import { setTimeout } from 'node:timers/promises'
import fetch from 'node-fetch'

console.log("PID:", process.pid)
// Any large file will do
const url = 'https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Sunset_2007-1.jpg'
const response = await fetch(url)
response.body.destroy()
await setTimeout(100000)

With node-fetch v2, a socket stays open. (I verify this with ss -tnp | grep pid=PID)

With node-fetch v3, this doesn't happen.

Your Environment

software version
node-fetch 2.6.11
node 16.14.2
npm 8.5.0
Operating System Ubuntu 22.04
Additional context

As a workaround, one can use an AbortController to abort the request when the response body is closed. Something like:

const ctrl = new AbortController()
const response = await fetch(url, { signal: ctrl.signal })
response.body.on('close', () => {
  if (!response.bodyUsed) {
    ctrl.abort()
  }
})

But it would be nicer if node-fetch did that automatically instead.

[chungquantin]

@emcsween Have you figured out how to resolve this issue? I got the same bug.

[emcsween]

@chungquantin I use the workaround described above in the description of this issue.