npm 3.10.10 install socket hang up error - npm

Question

I am using Node 6.10.1 and npm 3.10.10 on a Dell XPS 15 running Ubuntu 16.04 with Kernel 4.13.0.0-36-generic.
I am behind a corporate proxy which is configured through cntlm.
When I run an npm install -d on a project It works from a short time, and after a while I get Error: socket hang up.
I have found numerous questions about my problem but no solution seemed to work.
Here is an extract of a npm config list :
; cli configs
user-agent = "npm/3.10.10 node/v6.10.1 linux x64"
; userconfig /home/msb/.npmrc
https-proxy = "http://localhost:3128/"
registry = "http://urlTocorporateRegistryWhichWorksOnOtherComputers"
strict-ssl = false
; node bin location = /home/msb/.nvm/versions/node/v6.10.1/bin/node
; cwd = /home/msb
; HOME = /home/msb
; "npm config ls -l" to show all defaults.
I cannot change the registry since we are using some internal modules, and I have to keep the current versions of node/npm.
I have already tried :
Using the proxy directly in npm config rather than through cntlm
Limiting my upload/download capabilities with trickle through the command trickle -s -d 100 -u 100 npm install -d
Another indication : It works on Windows, and I have a collegue running Ubuntu 17.04 on a slower pc and it works for him. We think my machine might be a bit too brutal when requesting the registry. Does anyone know a way to slow npm requests ?
It used to work through yarn but some new developments have forced me to go back to npm.
Has anyone encountered and corrected this problem ?
Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

I experimented the same problem, with no apparent reason, on Ubuntu 18.04.
I finally used docker with bind mounts to solve it. The steps are the following:
Create a dockerfile with the following elements (you can also directly run with the used image if you don't need to configure a proxy like me)
FROM node:6.10.1
ENV HTTPS_PROXY "http://yourproxy:yourport/"
# Different RUN commands to configure npm and git corporate proxy
WORKDIR /home/root/
Build the image (from the dockerfile's folder): docker image build -f npm-installer/Dockerfile -t custom-npm-installer .
Go inside the project folder where you would normally run npm install
Run the following command to run the container interactively: docker container run -it --network host -v </host/path/to/pj>:/home/root/pj-to-install --name custom-npm-installer custom-npm-installer bash
You can now run the npm install command from the container. Careful however, you'll then need to use chmod on the node_modules folder recursively since the container uses root by default.
Another thing, if you're using node-sass, it is most of the time compiled on the fly when npm installing, and matches your OS current version/architecture. So if your linux distribution is not exactly the same than the container's you might need to recompile node-sass on your host after running npm install on the container. No worries though, node-sass will give you the command to run the moment you launch your application.