Npm Please try using this command again as root/administrator

Question

I've been desperately trying to install modules using node.js but it always fails getting packages with npm.

I logged in as Administrator and used powershell/cmd with "run as administrator". I also had problems with the registry so I used npm set registry http://registry.npmjs.org/

I tried everything... it just drives me nuts.

Here are the errors:

npm ERR! Please try running this command again as root/Administrator.

npm ERR! System Windows_NT 6.2.9200 npm ERR! command "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\\\node.exe" "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "install" "generator-knockout" npm ERR! cwd D:\Sergiu\Knockout Test npm ERR! node -v v0.10.26 npm ERR! npm -v 1.4.3 npm ERR! path D:\Sergiu\Knockout Test\node_modules\generator-knockout\node_modules\yeoman-generator\node_modules\tar\node_modules\block-stream\block-stream.js npm ERR! fstream_path D:\Sergiu\Knockout Test\node_modules\generator-knockout\node_modules\yeoman-generator\node_modules\tar\node_modules\block-stream\block-stream.js npm ERR! fstream_type File npm ERR! fstream_class FileWriter npm ERR! code EPERM npm ERR! errno 50 npm ERR! stack Error: EPERM, lstat 'D:\Sergiu\Knockout Test\node_modules\generator-knockout\node_modules\yeoman-generator\node_modules\tar\node_modules\block-stream\block-stream.js' npm ERR! fstream_stack C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\fstream\lib\writer.js:284:26 npm ERR! fstream_stack Object.oncomplete (fs.js:107:15) npm ERR! Error: EPERM, lstat 'D:\Sergiu\Knockout Test\node_modules\generator-knockout\node_modules\yeoman-generator\node_modules\tar\node_modules\fstream\LICENSE' npm ERR!  { [Error: EPERM, lstat 'D:\Sergiu\Knockout Test\node_modules\generator-knockout\node_modules\yeoman-generator\node_modules\tar\node_modules\fstream\LICENSE'] npm ERR!   errno: 50, npm ERR!   code: 'EPERM', npm ERR!   path: 'D:\\Sergiu\\Knockout Test\\node_modules\\generator-knockout\\node_modules\\yeoman-generator\\node_modules\\tar\\node_modules\\fstream\\LICENSE', npm ERR!   fstream_type: 'File', npm ERR!   fstream_path: 'D:\\Sergiu\\Knockout Test\\node_modules\\generator-knockout\\node_modules\\yeoman-generator\\node_modules\\tar\\node_modules\\fstream\\LICENSE', npm ERR!   fstream_class: 'FileWriter', npm ERR!   fstream_stack: npm ERR!    [ 'C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\node_modules\\fstream\\lib\\writer.js:284:26', npm ERR!      'Object.oncomplete (fs.js:107:15)' ] } npm ERR! npm ERR! Please try running this command again as root/Administrator. 

Answer 1

It turns out that you don’t have to run the command again as Administrator, and doing so won’t fix the problem.

Try:

1. npm cache clean first.

2. If that doesn’t fix things, take a look in %APPDATA%\npm-cache, or if you’re using PowerShell, $env:APPDATA\npm-cache.

After cleaning the cache, you may still be left with remnants. Manually remove everything in that directory, and try again. This has always fixed things for me.

As @Crazzymatt was mentioning, as of the npm@5 version and up, we need to use npm cache verify instead of npm cache clean. Or else you will get an error as preceding.

npm ERR! As of npm@5, the npm cache self-heals from corruption issues and data extracted from the cache is guaranteed to be valid. If you want to make sure everything is consistent, use 'npm cache verify' instead.

(Source: MSDN Blog post)