Can't install anything

[ghost]

Any time I try to install something, I get a mega error. This is on Mac OS 10.8.

sudo npm install -g generator-angular-fullstack

npm ERR! Error: could not get uid/gid
npm ERR! [ 'nobody', 20 ]
npm ERR!
npm ERR!     at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/uid-number/uid-number.js:36:24
npm ERR!     at ChildProcess.exithandler (child_process.js:635:7)
npm ERR!     at ChildProcess.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:98:17)
npm ERR!     at maybeClose (child_process.js:735:16)
npm ERR!     at Socket.<anonymous> (child_process.js:948:11)
npm ERR!     at Socket.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:95:17)
npm ERR!     at Pipe.close (net.js:466:12)
npm ERR! If you need help, you may report this *entire* log,
npm ERR! including the npm and node versions, at:
npm ERR!     <http://github.com/npm/npm/issues>

npm ERR! System Darwin 12.5.0
npm ERR! command "node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "install" "-g" "generator-angular-fullstack"
npm ERR! cwd /Users/bob
npm ERR! node -v v0.10.22
npm ERR! npm -v 1.4.3
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     /Users/bob/npm-debug.log
npm ERR! not ok code 0

[Laurian]

Same, compiled and installed node 0.10.26 on Ubuntu 12.04; npm update dies:

root@dev:/opt/node-v0.10.26# npm update -g
npm ERR! Error: could not get uid/gid
npm ERR! [ 'nobody', 0 ]
npm ERR! 
npm ERR!     at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/uid-number/uid-number.js:36:24
npm ERR!     at ChildProcess.exithandler (child_process.js:635:7)
npm ERR!     at ChildProcess.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:98:17)
npm ERR!     at maybeClose (child_process.js:743:16)
npm ERR!     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (child_process.js:810:5)
npm ERR! If you need help, you may report this *entire* log,
npm ERR! including the npm and node versions, at:
npm ERR!     <http://github.com/npm/npm/issues>

npm ERR! System Linux 3.2.0-54-virtual
npm ERR! command "/usr/local/bin/node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "update" "-g"
npm ERR! cwd /opt/node-v0.10.26
npm ERR! node -v v0.10.26
npm ERR! npm -v 1.4.3
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     /opt/node-v0.10.26/npm-debug.log
npm ERR! not ok code 0

Trying as non root a sudo npm update -g yields the same error, only difference is [ 'nobody', 1000 ] instead of [ 'nobody', 0 ]

[ghost]

Just wondering, and hopefully no one takes this the wrong way: Does any testing get carried out at all before releases are pushed out into the world? Having such a fundamental procedure fail like this seems strange.

[Laurian]

For now I just commented out line 36 of /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/uid-number/uid-number.js to ignore the error and everything else worked fine afterwards.

I guess this issue should be filled with https://github.com/isaacs/uid-number

[ghost]

Did a totally clean install of node. Removed all previous traces of it completely before installing. Still doesn't work.

[neurobits]

Hi, same thing here, I had at least one of the possible ways to reproduce the issue. Consider that yesterday I had my npm installation broken, I deleted every 'node_modules' directory on my hardisk and do a clean node install (osx) alongside some npm packages. Today I did some 'npm update -g [package]' updates. Just after run 'sudo npm update -g uid-number' and get a clean update, I had repeated exactly the same update command by mistake. Inmediatly my npm get broken again. I copied the entire /usr/local/lib/node_modules/uid-number to /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/uid-number. Unsucessfully.

npm ERR! Error: could not get uid/gid
npm ERR! [ 'nobody', 20 ]
npm ERR!
npm ERR! at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/uid-number/uid-number.js:36:24
npm ERR! at ChildProcess.exithandler (child_process.js:635:7)
npm ERR! at ChildProcess.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:98:17)
npm ERR! at maybeClose (child_process.js:743:16)
npm ERR! at Socket. (child_process.js:956:11)
npm ERR! at Socket.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:95:17)
npm ERR! at Pipe.close (net.js:466:12)
npm ERR! If you need help, you may report this entire log,
npm ERR! including the npm and node versions, at:
npm ERR! http://github.com/npm/npm/issues

npm ERR! System Darwin 13.0.0
npm ERR! command "node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "ls" "-g"
npm ERR! cwd /Users/neurobits
npm ERR! node -v v0.10.25
npm ERR! npm -v 1.4.3
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR! /Users/neurobits/npm-debug.log
npm ERR! not ok code 0

[danmactough]

What is the output of:

$ npm config get unsafe-perm

If it isn't true, try setting it to true with npm config set unsafe-perm true and trying again.

[neurobits]

Stop running npm as root with sudo. And worked ok, but just after set me as owner of /usr/local/lib/node_modules directory. Before I tried setting privileges to ug+rw and owner/group to root:staff (my user is staff's member, of course I verified that ;) )

[neurobits]

npm config get unsafe-perm --> true
sudo npm config get unsafe-perm --> false

Setting 'npm config set unsafe-perm true' worked ok. thanks a lot.

[danmactough]

Setting 'npm config set unsafe-perm true' worked ok. thanks a lot.

🎉 Not sure that's the best solution, but getting un-stuck is usually a big win!

[ghost]

I was under the impression that on Mac OS (and possibly Linux), when installing things globally with -g, you're supposed to use sudo. Is that not the case? If I run npm update -g, I get permissions errors because it can't write to /usr/local/lib/node_modules. I'm nearly positive this has to be run as root.

[ghost]

As a workaround for the permissions issue (having to use sudo), I just recursively chowned /usr/local/lib/node_modules to myself. Seems to work.

[msumme]

sudo npm config set unsafe-perm true - also worked for me.

[isaacs]

Root cause: npm/uid-number#3

Pushing a new npm now. Sorry about this.

[isaacs]

If you are affected by this, you can run this script: https://gist.github.com/isaacs/9117286

The good news is that this bug didn't go out in the recent Node.js release, so you can also click the Big Green Button on http://nodejs.org and it should fix it for you.