Tailwind sometimes crashes Angular Dev server on startup when running on Windows

[jakob0fischl]

What version of Tailwind CSS are you using?

4.1.16

What build tool (or framework if it abstracts the build tool) are you using?

Angular

What version of Node.js are you using?

v24.11.0 and 22.21.0

What browser are you using?

not relevant

What operating system are you using?

Windows 11 24H2

Reproduction URL

https://github.com/jakob0fischl/tailwind-bug
The only thing done in this repository is going through https://tailwindcss.com/docs/installation/framework-guides/angular

Describe your issue

When running ng server the dev server sometimes immediately crashes during startup, this does not happen when tailwind is not installed. Downgrading to tailwind v4.1.14 resolves the issue. Running the same project on Linux does not have this issue

PS C:\Users\jakob\Desktop\dev\tailwind-bug> pnpm run start

> tailwind-bug@0.0.0 start C:\Users\jakob\Desktop\dev\tailwind-bug
> ng serve

⠋ Building...
 ELIFECYCLE  Command failed with exit code 3221226356.

PS C:\Users\jakob\Desktop\dev\tailwind-bug> npm run start

> tailwind-bug@0.0.0 start
> ng serve

⠋ Building...

When using npm it just stops without any error message, with pnpm there's at least an error code. I tried to reproduce it using postcss directly but didn't manage to so far. Sometimes it takes ~20 attempts to crash, sometimes it crashes 6 times in a row

[thecrypticace]

The exit code 0xC0000374 (3221226356) is returned when there is heap corruption. Makes me think something is not allocating memory correctly.

What processor are you using?

Aside: Not able to reproduce so far on a Windows ARM VM.

[jakob0fischl]

I tested this on a AMD Ryzen 7 7700X. But a friend of mine had the same issue on a Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, I also had the feeling that it was happening more on his system

[ProfessorPinguino]

I have encountered the same error on a AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D after upgrading to 4.1.16 - before that i was on 4.1.13 where I did not encouter that problem
 ELIFECYCLE  Command failed with exit code 3221226356.

Happens randomly during build/serve

Edit: I use Windows 11 24H2
And I use node 22.17.0 and npm version 11.5.2

[thecrypticace]

Testing on a AMD Ryzen 9 3900X I'm able to reproduce something during a build occasionally with the reproduction project. I actually don't get an error message though.

I've seen PowerShell report two different exit codes:

• -1073740940
• -1073740791

I've also not been able to reproduce this so far with just the CLI.

Node v24.9.0
NPM v11.6.0

[ProfessorPinguino]

Testing on a AMD Ryzen 9 3900X I'm able to reproduce something during a build occasionally with the reproduction project. I actually don't get an error message though.

I did not get an error message until I turned on --verbose on ng build. Without verbose the build process just exited without any information at all. It was also pretty hard to reproduce since sometimes 20 builds worked in a row and then sometimes it failed 5 times in a row.

I have also downgraded to 4.1.13 now and the error hasn't appeared since (however like I said it could also just be a coincidence since it sometimes worked for hours without problems before the error reappeared)

[thecrypticace]

Okay possible good news. I ran Node + Angular directly in WinDbgX:

This pointed at worker threads and something called GetNodeReport. After poking around the node source and some searching it gave me just enough info to find this: napi-rs/napi-rs#2972

Looks like an issue in our build process for Oxide. Calling a specific API on Windows when loaded inside a worker thread causes heap corruption. This also explains why I couldn't see this in the CLI — Angular is loading things into worker threads and the CLI does not.

Will see if I can update some deps, do some testing of a new build sometime today/tomorrow to validate whether or not this fixes things.

[thecrypticace]

Looks like we bumped our NAPI-RS dep a few days ago so this fix should be in the insiders build.

Can you give that a test?

npm install @tailwindcss/postcss@insiders tailwindcss@insiders

I've been running a continuous build for about 5 minutes now with that build and haven't ran into a crash yet.

[ProfessorPinguino]

Thanks for the quick response.

I upgraded to 4.1.16 again to make sure its that version - ran into the error after the 4th build.
then I upgraded to the insiders build and ran 25 builds - without seeing the error.
Seems to me like that fixes the problem

[thecrypticace]

Fantastic. I'll look at tagging a patch release tomorrow 👍

[jakob0fischl]

Also tested it on my system and the insiders build fixes it for me as well.
Thanks for the quick fix ❤️

[thecrypticace]

v4.1.17 is out now with the fix 👍