Error: Cannot find module '../lib/cli'

Question

I'm completely new to javascript development and I'm getting the following error as I work my way through the backbone_blueprints book. Here is the error I get:

> [email protected] start /Users/noahc/Projects/backbone_blueprints/blog
> nodemon server.js


module.js:340
    throw err;
          ^
Error: Cannot find module '../lib/cli'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:338:15)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:280:25)
    at Module.require (module.js:364:17)
    at require (module.js:380:17)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/noahc/Projects/backbone_blueprints/blog/node_modules/.bin/nodemon:3:11)
    at Module._compile (module.js:456:26)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:474:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)
    at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:497:10)

npm ERR! Darwin 14.1.0
npm ERR! argv "node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "start"
npm ERR! node v0.10.33
npm ERR! npm  v2.1.11
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! [email protected] start: `nodemon server.js`
npm ERR! Exit status 8
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] start script 'nodemon server.js'.
npm ERR! This is most likely a problem with the simple-blog package,
npm ERR! not with npm itself.
npm ERR! Tell the author that this fails on your system:
npm ERR!     nodemon server.js
npm ERR! You can get their info via:
npm ERR!     npm owner ls simple-blog
npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     /Users/noahc/Projects/backbone_blueprints/blog/npm-debug.log
☹ ~/Projects/backbone_blueprints/blog npm install                                                                   ruby-2.1.3
npm WARN package.json [email protected] No repository field.
npm WARN package.json [email protected] No README data

Here is the debug log:

0 info it worked if it ends with ok 
1 verbose cli [ 'node', '/usr/local/bin/npm', 'install' ]
2 info using [email protected]
3 info using [email protected]
4 verbose node symlink /usr/local/bin/node
5 error install Couldn't read dependencies
6 verbose stack Error: ENOENT, open '/Users/noahc/Projects/backbone_blueprints/package.json'
7 verbose cwd /Users/noahc/Projects/backbone_blueprints
8 error Darwin 14.1.0
9 error argv "node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "install"
10 error node v0.10.33
11 error npm  v2.1.11
12 error path /Users/noahc/Projects/backbone_blueprints/package.json
13 error code ENOPACKAGEJSON
14 error errno 34 
15 error package.json ENOENT, open '/Users/noahc/Projects/backbone_blueprints/package.json'
15 error package.json This is most likely not a problem with npm itself.
15 error package.json npm can't find a package.json file in your current directory.
16 verbose exit [ 34, true ]

And this:

☹ ~/Projects/backbone_blueprints/blog which node                                                                    ruby-2.1.3
/usr/local/bin/node
☺ ~/Projects/backbone_blueprints/blog which npm                                                                     ruby-2.1.3
/usr/local/bin/npm

I thought it might be a path issue and so I added export NODE_PATH=/opt/lib/node_modules to my .zshrc file and sourced it and that seemed to have no impact.

Any thoughts on anyway I can troubleshoot this or try to better understand what is actually happening?

Answer 1

My solution was to just delete the directory /node_modules/ and to make a fresh install afterwards with npm install.

Answer 2

Nodedemon is looking for its ../lib/cli folder in its own directory and not finding it. You probably have a messed up install. This can happen sometimes when you use finder to copy a project from one folder to another.

If you blow away your node_modules directory and reinstall from scratch, you should restore the folder.

cd your_project_folder
rm -rf node_modules
npm install

Edit:

You might also use yarn.

cd your_project_folder
rm -rf node_modules
yarn

Answer 3

For me npm was broken, probably because I ran it with sudo at some point.

I needed to fix brew, upgrade/update

brew uninstall node
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/*
brew cleanup
brew install node