Global installation with npm doesn't work after Mac OS X Mavericks update

Question

After upgrading to OS X 10.9 Mavericks, node wasn't found anymore in bash. I think I installed it with brew a while ago.

I decided to use the installer from node.js website. It went fine and both node and npm became available in bash. However, installing packages globally doesn't work.

The npm -g bin outputs following path /usr/local/bin.

However, after running npm install -g karma and invoking ls -la /usr/local/bin I can't see a symlink to the path where karma executable resides.

Running npm -g root returns /usr/local/lib/node_modules and after the installation I can see that karma module is there.

Not sure what I else I could check. Thanks!

You can check if `/usr/local/lib/node_modules` is in the PATH env variable. — Mukesh Soni, Mar 21 '14 at 14:57
@MukeshSoni that wouldn't help, because executables are not in that folder, only the packages folders, but thanks — Misha Reyzlin, Mar 21 '14 at 15:02
The executable for karma will be in `/usr/local/lib/node_modules/karma/bin` folder. Am i missing something? — Mukesh Soni, Mar 21 '14 at 15:07
@MukeshSoni yes, but adding `/usr/local/lib/node_modules/` to `$PATH` won't make bash look for executables in subfolders. — Misha Reyzlin, Mar 21 '14 at 15:09
Yes sorry. `/usr/local/bin/karma` should be symlinked to `/usr/local/lib/node_modules/karma/bin/karma`. — Mukesh Soni, Mar 21 '14 at 15:09
but that's what npm should do automatically every time I install globally – that's my problem basically. — Misha Reyzlin, Mar 21 '14 at 15:18
got it. Yes that should be done by npm. Did you try the age old technique of uninstalling and installing karma again :). Maybe just remove the karma directory completely from `/usr/local/lib/node_modules` — Mukesh Soni, Mar 21 '14 at 15:20

score 14 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 18 '14 at 20:50

14

I found that the root cause of all of my npm install issues was the missing Xcode license agreement.

After the Maverick update, XCode upgraded as well and if you don't launch XCode, the license agreement will be missing.

Once I accepted the agreement, installs were successful.

answered Apr 18 '14 at 20:50

Greg

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Thank you, I was just about to symlink but your answer saved me! – Apr 29 '14 at 16:34
I've found that you have to do this every time XCode installs/upgrade. Not just during the OS upgrades. – Greg Oct 20 '14 at 15:03
After the xcode agreement, nothing has changed. Do i have to reinstall all modules? – TomSawyer Aug 11 '16 at 17:52

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 24 '14 at 00:11

I had the same problem due to not accepting the xcode license after upgrading to Mavericks. I was able to accept the new xcode license by running the following:

sudo xcodebuild -license

However, npm still was not working because symlink was not created, but trying to reinstall said npm was already there. I went ahead and:

brew remove npm

and then reinstalled with:

brew install npm

and I am back working again. Not a big fan of the reinstall, but I think the need to accept the xcode license left things in a hung state.

Got this error if i run `brew remove npm` : `Error: No such keg: /usr/local/Cellar/node` — TomSawyer, Aug 11 '16 at 17:55

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 13 '14 at 17:36

I had the same problem - npm did not work after upgrading to mavericks. I tried all the above steps, but was still stuck. Specifically, when I tried to re-install node, I got the error:

Warning: The post-install step did not complete successfully You can try again using brew postinstall node

But running brew postinstall node responded:

Error: Permission denied - /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/AUTHORS

I tried removing all the node modules previously installed

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/node_modules/

and then uninstalling and reinstalling node

and that finally got both node and npm working as before.

I was able to run `sudo brew postinstall node` brew error message provided this recommendation; only worked with `sudo` — raddrick, Nov 10 '14 at 18:08

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 21 '14 at 15:36

1

The problem seems to have occured because I tried to install packages that were previously on my system. The symlinks weren't created, probably because of that. Once I removed the packages and re-installed them (or tried to install packages I haven't had), they were added to /usr/local/bin as symlinks.

answered Mar 21 '14 at 15:36

Misha Reyzlin

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I had the same problem. After `sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/node_modules/`it worked for me. Thanks – Andreas Gyr Dec 28 '16 at 13:38

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered May 14 '14 at 21:35

I had the same problem. After a maverick upgrade npm was not working, yet node itself was. I was not using the latest version as our team prefers to use 0.8.10.

In any case nvm, the node.js version manager, was still working. In this case I just reinstalled:

$ nvm install 0.8.21
######################################################################## 100.0%
Now using node v0.8.21
$ npm
Usage: npm <command>

where <command> is one of:
add-user, adduser, apihelp, author, bin, bugs, c, cache,
completion, config, ddp, dedupe, deprecate, docs, edit,
explore, faq, find, find-dupes, get, help, help-search,
home, i, info, init, install, isntall, issues, la, link,
list, ll, ln, login, ls, outdated, owner, pack, prefix,
prune, publish, r, rb, rebuild, remove, restart, rm, root,
run-script, s, se, search, set, show, shrinkwrap, star,
stars, start, stop, submodule, tag, test, tst, un,
uninstall, unlink, unpublish, unstar, up, update, version,
view, whoami

npm <cmd> -h     quick help on <cmd>
npm -l           display full usage info
npm faq          commonly asked questions
npm help <term>  search for help on <term>
npm help npm     involved overview

In the case where nvm was not working you might need to reinstall that, as well- ymmv

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 06 '14 at 08:36

I am not sure if my answer was too late or not. I found myself in a difference situation than you. Hope that my experience an hour ago helps you.

my npm version (npm -v) is 1.4.28. First, I installed node.js on a computer with an administrator account. Then I created a user with administrator rights. When I tried to check the version of npm running, I failed to do so.

I searched the web and came across with this text. The original poster asked to check the path settings. I did not have node.js and npm installed with homebrew, another software that made me headache two months ago. I checked that I can run node. It is because node is located at /usr/local/bin, where all users have rights to execute programs. But for npm, it is in fact a link to ../lib/node_modules/npm/bin. However, the /usr/local/lib folder is not accessible by other users' but the administrator's account only.

I "sudo -i" and granted "chmod a+x ../lib" to it. Surprisingly, all folders' within have the correct execution right. I suspected that is some sorts of bug. I exited sudo and tried "npm -v" again. Succeed.

Hope that helps.

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 26 '15 at 23:00

In case the other solutions posted here do not work for you either, you may try out the approach suggested on this GitHub page. With a complete re-installation according to the insturctions on the page, I finally got npm (and an application, vs-mda-remote to be precise) working.

EDIT: This happened after updating from Mavericks to Yosemite.

Global installation with npm doesn't work after Mac OS X Mavericks update

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