PhantomJS 2.1.1 downloading, frequent 429 Too Many Requests errors

[johanneswuerbach]

Recently downloading PhantomJS binaries failed more and more often in my CI runs. I'm fully aware that this is a bitbucket issue, but would it be possible to distribute the binaries also via github releases https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/releases, which I found was quite reliable in the past?

Example testem CI run:
https://ci.appveyor.com/project/johanneswuerbach/testem/build/768/job/k13peuov2jh5tex5

Status: 429
Request options: {
  "uri": "https://bitbucket.org/ariya/phantomjs/downloads/phantomjs-2.1.1-windows.zip",
  "encoding": null,
  "followRedirect": true,
  "headers": {
    "User-Agent": "npm/2.14.12 node/v4.2.4 win32 ia32"
  },
  "strictSSL": true
}

[ariya]

Unfortunately Github doesn't provide any metrics at all. We would like to at least keep track of the download counts.

In all cases, bring this up to https://github.com/Medium/phantomjs/ as we don't handle that npm package. Possible workarounds (1) that npm package should support alternative download URL via environment variable and you point it to your own mirror (2) in your CI process, download the binary yourself from your own mirror.

[johanneswuerbach]

Looks like everybody is hardcoding the semi broken bitbucket mirror at the moment. choco (the windows package management) is also using it https://chocolatey.org/packages/PhantomJS and failing frequently.

Homebrew is using https://bintray.com/, which is free for OSS and has stats. Maybe that could be an option?

[johanneswuerbach]

Possible workarounds (1) that npm package should support alternative download URL via environment variable and you point it to your own mirror (2) in your CI process, download the binary yourself from your own mirror.

Yes that would be definitely an option, but I guess I'm not the only one running into that issue and it feels a bit pointless that everybody maintains their own mirror. (which would also screw up download stats)

Medium/phantomjs#399

[ariya]

For alternative download location, discuss it at #13953.