I got the same error on amd64 while running yarnpkg in root of vscode source:
git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode cd vscode yarnpkg ... [4/4] Building fresh packages... [1/14] ⠠ gc-signals [2/14] ⠠ keytar [3/14] ⠠ native-is-elevated [4/14] ⠐ native-keymap error /root/vscode/node_modules/gc-signals: Command failed. Exit code: 7 Command: node-gyp rebuild Arguments: Directory: /root/vscode/node_modules/gc-signals Output: gyp info it worked if it ends with ok gyp info using node-gyp@3.8.0 gyp info using node@10.15.1 | linux | x64 gyp http GET https://atom.io/download/electron/v3.1.3/iojs-v3.1.3-headers.tar.gz gyp http 200 https://atom.io/download/electron/v3.1.3/iojs-v3.1.3-headers.tar.gz gyp ERR! UNCAUGHT EXCEPTION gyp ERR! stack TypeError: Cannot read property 'substring' of undefined gyp ERR! stack at Unpack.isValid [as filter] (/usr/share/node-gyp/lib/install.js:160:30) gyp ERR! stack at Unpack.[consumeHeader] (/usr/lib/nodejs/tar/lib/parse.js:134:48) gyp ERR! stack at Unpack.[consumeChunkSub] (/usr/lib/nodejs/tar/lib/parse.js:385:30) gyp ERR! stack at Unpack.[consumeChunk] (/usr/lib/nodejs/tar/lib/parse.js:362:30) gyp ERR! stack at Unpack.write (/usr/lib/nodejs/tar/lib/parse.js:309:25) gyp ERR! stack at Gunzip.ondata (_stream_readable.js:667:20) gyp ERR! stack at Gunzip.emit (events.js:189:13) gyp ERR! stack at addChunk (_stream_readable.js:284:12) gyp ERR! stack at readableAddChunk (_stream_readable.js:265:11) gyp ERR! stack at Gunzip.Readable.push (_stream_readable.js:220:10) gyp ERR! System Linux 4.19.0-2-amd64 gyp ERR! command "/usr/bin/node" "/usr/bin/node-gyp" "rebuild" gyp ERR! cwd /root/vscode/node_modules/gc-signals gyp ERR! node -v v10.15.1 gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v3.8.0 The strange thing is that if I cd /root/vscode/node_modules/gc-signals then: node-gyp rebuild it works fine. Paolo