TIL: How to fix Node Network timeouts

Node network requests were only going through if I connected to a VPN.

• This meant nothing was was coming through from the npm registry, eg npm i or bun install weren’t working.
• I also had some processes in the node app that were making network requests and those were hanging and timing out too.
• Worth noting I had this issue on a Mac.

The fix

• Renewing DHCP lease on my local network
• Flushing my DNS Cache: Sometimes DNS cache issues can cause network problems. run sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

Edit: a few moments later…

I realized the fix above didn’t work. The issue persisted for another day or so, but eventually fixed itself and has been fine for 3 weeks. Weird.