Scribe.js does not work using Node.js on Windows

[Kuladeep561]

Error [ERR_UNSUPPORTED_ESM_URL_SCHEME]: Only URLs with a scheme in: file, data, and node are supported by the default ESM loader. On Windows, absolute paths must be valid file:// URLs. Received protocol 'c:'
at throwIfUnsupportedURLScheme (node:internal/modules/esm/load:236:11)
at defaultLoad (node:internal/modules/esm/load:128:3)
at ModuleLoader.load (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:409:13)
at ModuleLoader.moduleProvider (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:291:56)
at new ModuleJob (node:internal/modules/esm/module_job:65:26)
at #createModuleJob (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:303:17)
at ModuleLoader.getJobFromResolveResult (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:260:34)
at ModuleLoader.getModuleJob (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:241:17)
at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5)
at async ModuleLoader.import (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:328:23) {
code: 'ERR_UNSUPPORTED_ESM_URL_SCHEME'
}

{
  "name": "server",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "type": "module",
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "dependencies": {
    "cors": "^2.8.5",
    "express": "^4.21.0",
    "scribe.js-ocr": "^0.2.8"
  }
}

#!/usr/bin/env node
// Run `node server.js path/to/image.jpg` to recognize text in an image.
import scribe from "scribe.js-ocr";

async function recognizeText(imgpath) {
  const res = await scribe.extractText([imgpath]);
  console.log(res);
  await scribe.terminate();
}

export { recognizeText };

import { recognizeText } from "./recognize.js"; // Adjust the path as necessary
import { pathToFileURL } from "url";

const imgpath = "C:/Users/kuk.idk/Downloads/test ocr.jpg";
const imgURL = pathToFileURL(imgpath).href;

if (imgURL) {
  recognizeText(imgURL).catch(console.error);
} else {
  console.error("Please provide an image path.");
}

[Balearica]

Based on these messages there appears to be some issue specific to running with Node.js on Windows. I'll look into whether it's possible to get it running on Windows without undue effort.

[Balearica]

I investigated this, and it is currently not possible for us to support Node.js for Windows. The error messages you were encountering were caused by the fact that the web-worker package does not support Windows. I solved this error message by cutting out that dependency entirely. However, fixing this revealed multiple other errors, including issues stemming from dependency code we cannot feasibly change.

The most significant issue is that node-canvas has features that have been broken on Windows for some time, This dependency is critical, so this prevents any other progress we could make in other areas of the code from being useful. We can revisit if the node-canvas bug is ever patched.

The only thing I can recommend is running a Ubuntu terminal from Windows using WSL2. WSL2 integrates very well with Windows (once installed you just open a different command line), and you won't need to deal with any of Windows-specific issues (which appear to be very common across npm).

[Kuladeep561]

Thanks for the quick resolution. I will do my best