Why is npm giving 500 and 503 errors: "registry error parsing json"?

Question

Trying to do npm install steroids -g and running into lots of errors of two types:

First: 500

npm ERR! registry error parsing json npm http 500 https://registry.npmjs.org/cardinal npm ERR! registry error parsing json npm http 500 https://registry.npmjs.org/glob npm ERR! registry error parsing json npm http 500 https://registry.npmjs.org/chmodr npm ERR! registry error parsing json npm http 500 https://registry.npmjs.org/fstream npm ERR! registry error parsing json 

when I visit those urls in the browser I get the following message:

Internal routing error

Sorry, we cannot connect to the intended server.

We have just been notified of this problem. We will correct it as soon as possible.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions: [email protected]

Second: 503

npm http 503 https://registry.npmjs.org/forever-agent npm ERR! registry error parsing json npm http 503 https://registry.npmjs.org/cheerio npm ERR! registry error parsing json npm http 503 https://registry.npmjs.org/request npm ERR! registry error parsing json npm http 503 https://registry.npmjs.org/diff npm ERR! registry error parsing json npm http 503 https://registry.npmjs.org/tar 

When I visit those urls in the browser I get this message:

Error 503 backend read error

backend read error

Guru Meditation:

XID: 1448084160

Varnish cache server

Does this mean the npm registry is down? or do I have strange behavior on my machine?

Running node v.0.10.24 & npm v.1.3.21

Answer 1

Try using a mirror for example the european mirror:

npm --registry http://registry.npmjs.eu/ install karma