npm install -g dredd@stable fails on CircleCI due to npm ERR! code ECONNRESET

I have a project on CircleCI which started going red (due to failure on installing dredd) at some point. Currently the same exact project (same code, same circle.yml) may fail or succeed at random it seems.

The failure is always in the phase 'npm install -g dredd@stable' with the following error which repeats itself several times and eventually fails the build:

make: Leaving directory `/opt/circleci/nodejs/v4.2.6/lib/node_modules/dredd/node_modules/dredd-transactions/node_modules/fury-adapter-apib-parser/node_modules/drafter/node_modules/protagonist/build' npm ERR! Linux 3.13.0-117-generic npm ERR! argv "/opt/circleci/nodejs/v4.2.6/bin/node" "/opt/circleci/nodejs/v4.2.6/bin/npm" "install" "-g" "dredd@stable" npm ERR! node v4.2.6 npm ERR! npm v2.14.12 npm ERR! code ECONNRESET npm ERR! errno ECONNRESET npm ERR! syscall read npm ERR! network read ECONNRESET npm ERR! network This is most likely not a problem with npm itself npm ERR! network and is related to network connectivity. npm ERR! network In most cases you are behind a proxy or have bad network settings. npm ERR! network npm ERR! network If you are behind a proxy, please make sure that the npm ERR! network 'proxy' config is set properly. See: 'npm help config'

If I try to rerun the build several times it will succeed at some point (going Green). The dredd installation then shows up something like this:

make: Leaving directory `/opt/circleci/nodejs/v4.2.6/lib/node_modules/dredd/node_modules/dredd-transactions/node_modules/fury-adapter-apib-parser/node_modules/drafter/node_modules/protagonist/build' /opt/circleci/nodejs/v4.2.6/bin/dredd -> /opt/circleci/nodejs/v4.2.6/lib/node_modules/dredd/bin/dredd dredd@3.4.5 /opt/circleci/nodejs/v4.2.6/lib/node_modules/dredd ├── caseless@0.12.0 ├── clone@2.1.1 ├── file@0.2.2

etc', basically installing dredd successfully and moving on to test the build.

Since it seems to fail randomly I don't think the proxy has anything to do with it. Here is the circle.yml file for reference:

machine: environment: APIARY_API_KEY: "123456789ab12cd1234a1a1a123a123a" ruby: version: 2.3.1 dependencies: pre: - npm install -g dredd@stable - gem install apiaryio - pip install dredd_hooks database: override: - bundle exec rake db:create db:schema:load db:seed test: pre: - apiary fetch --api-name=ourAPIName --output=api-description.yml - dredd

Any help would be most welcome.

via Shachar R