yarn doesn't properly report http errors when fetching packages

[arcanis]

Do you want to request a feature or report a bug?
bug

What is the current behavior?
When an HTTP request for a tarball fails with a non-200 exit code (like 401 or 500), Yarn doesn't seem to properly catch it. This cause the error response to be treated as the tarball, which cause invalid reporting (usually "unexpected end of archive").

Also see:
This is the part of the code that's affected:
https://github.com/yarnpkg/yarn/blob/master/src/fetchers/tarball-fetcher.js#L231-L243

We provide a process option, so we never set the callback function that usually catch non-200 exit code:
https://github.com/yarnpkg/yarn/blob/master/src/util/request-manager.js#L407

If the current behavior is a bug, please provide the steps to reproduce.
It happens randomly based on the npm registry flakiness.

What is the expected behavior?
The error should say something like "Received an HTTP 500 from the server".

Please mention your node.js, yarn and operating system version.
1.12.3

[MLoughry]

Please fix this. Our team uses a private npm registry, and devs constantly get confused when their creds expire because the error messages are complete nonsense.

[arcanis]

@MLoughry have you tried the 1.13? I believe this issue should have been fixed with #6817

[MLoughry]

It's better, I suppose.

error An unexpected error occurred: "https://outlookweb.pkgs.visualstudio.com/_packaging/owa-npm/npm/registry/@ms-ofb/officebrowserfeedback/-/officebrowserfeedback-1.3.0.tgz: Request failed \"401 Unauthorized\"".

Is there any consideration of allowing a custom script to emit better and/or customized error messages? Eg., I could write a script telling my devs that they need to refresh their credentials.