Cannot find module 'readable-stream' when using npm

Question

I installed nodejs and am trying to use npm on my Windows machine. I downloaded all the files from nodejs website. I tried to install the latest 4.4.2 version or 5.10.1 version, but I always got error Cannot find module 'readable-stream' when I tried to run commands using npm.

C:\Users\Ealon>node -v                                                             
v5.10.1                                                                             

C:\Users\Ealon>npm -v                                                              
module.js:341                                                                       
    throw err;                                                                      
    ^                                                                                                                                                                   
Error: Cannot find module 'readable-stream'                                         
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:339:15)                          
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:290:25)                                     
    at Module.require (module.js:367:17)                                            
    at require (internal/module.js:16:19)                                           
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Users\Ealon\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\npm\node
modules\npmlog\node_modules\are-we-there-yet\index.js:2:14)                         
    at Module._compile (module.js:413:34)                                           
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:422:10)                             
    at Module.load (module.js:357:32)                                               
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:314:12)                                     
    at Module.require (module.js:367:17)                                            

I tried to reinstall it again and again, still could not fix this problem. And the answers in another similar question do not help because I always got error when I tried to run any command using npm. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

Judging from the line C:\Users\Ealon\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\npm\node modules\npmlog\node_modules\are-we-there-yet\index.js:2:14 in the stack trace, I believe that you had a global installation of npm which internally had a dependency on are-we-there-yet, which I confirmed has a dependency on readable-stream.

The global installation of npm appears to have been borked, and are-we-there-yet couldn't resolve access to the readable-stream module for some reason (bad install?).

This wasn't getting fixed by re-installing node, which by default installs npm into program files (path similar to C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm). I think the global version was getting run, but the version inside program files should be getting run, so wiping out the global installation of npm should hopefully resolve the issue.