npm ERR! Error: EPERM: operation not permitted, rename - node.js

Question

When I execute npm install I get this error
npm ERR! Error: EPERM: operation not permitted, rename C:\projects******\node_modules\react-async-script' -> 'C:\projects*******\node_modules.react-async-script.DELETE'
I am running the cmd as administrator
I ran npm cache clean before
I made sure all the other applications don't have anything related to node_modules open

Answer 1

In my situation this helped:
Before proceeding to execute these commands close all VS Code instances.
clean cache with
npm cache clean --force
install the latest version of npm globally as admin:
npm install -g npm#latest --force
clean cache with
npm cache clean --force
Try to install your component once again.
I hope this fix your issue. If not, you may temporarily disable your antivirus program and try again.

Answer 2

For me i just closed the Code editor (VS Code) and then run the same command. And that solves the issue for me.

Answer 3

I got it working when tried npm install with a force option to fetch remote resources even if a local copy exists on disk. Try running
npm install --force
Updated
For some of my colleagues this solution was not working. But we tried using yarn instead of npm. It works (faster as well) without any issues all the time
yarn install [package-name]

Answer 4

Not package.json, but for whatever reason, my node_modules/ had become read-only. Resetting that fixed this.

Answer 5

If you want to avoid the --force option (which is always a better approach), I suggest making sure that you have stopped running the project, as this is usually the main reason for locking the files in almost 90% of the cases I have seen
I suggest the following steps in this order:
1- In Angular stopping ng s and in React stopping npm start usually solves this issue because usually this error happens if a development server is running the project as it locks some files & then npm can't update them thus throwing this error
2- If the above doesn't work, then try closing the code editor that has the workspace opened in it (maybe it was locking some files or something)
So try closing the code editor & running:
npm install
3- If still it doesn't work, then maybe you can try the --force option
npm install --force

Answer 6

I was getting that same error and according to https://github.com/Medium/phantomjs/issues/19 it could be caused by your antivirus software. I disabled mine for the duration of the install and executed "npm install" on cmd as admin and it worked.
Hope this helps.

Answer 7

I was getting the same thing. I didn't find this anywhere but it hit me that our VMs tend to change files to a read-only state. So I opened package.json's file properties and deselected Read-only in the "General" tab.
Steps
Go to the package.json file.
Right-click and select Properties.
In the General tab, Attributes section, deselect Read-only.
Click Apply to apply the change.

Answer 8

This is a typical error caused by Antivirus. There is a workaround for cases like mine, where I can't disable A/V (Company Policy).
You have to change the polyfills.js inside Npm package:
[NODE_HOME]/node_modules/npm/node_modules/graceful_fs/polyfills.js
Look for this statement:
if (process.platform === "win32") {
Inside of this statement, there is a timeout making a retry in case of error. The problem is that in some cases, after the timeout, the file is still locked by the A/V. The solution is rip out the timeout and let this statement in loop. The change with the previous code commented:
if (platform === "win32") {
fs.rename = (function (fs$rename) { return function (from, to, cb) {
var start = Date.now()
var backoff = 0;
fs$rename(from, to, function CB (er) {
if (er
&& (er.code === "EACCES" || er.code === "EPERM")
/*&& Date.now() - start < 60000*/) {
console.log("Retrying rename file: " + from + " <> " + to)
fs$rename(from, to, CB);
/*setTimeout(function() {
fs.stat(to, function (stater, st) {
if (stater && stater.code === "ENOENT")
fs$rename(from, to, CB);
else
cb(er)
})
}, backoff)*/
if (backoff < 100)
backoff += 10;
return;
}
if (cb) cb(er)
})
}})(fs.rename)
}

Answer 9

As Martin Kearn pointed out in a comment, closing Visual Studio resolved these npm permission issues for me. Evidently VS sometimes locks files in node_modules.

Answer 10

I have had this issue multiple times only in Windows
I try these in the order usually.
npm install --force
Check if node_modules is set to read-only and
remove if it is
Delete node_modules/
Check if any editor is opened
that could have access to the root folder of the project
Reboot :(
Usually trying npm install after one of those steps will resolve it.

Answer 11

Trying to rename a file to another filename that already exists can cause an EPERM error on Windows.

Answer 12

In my case, something got locked up and a quick reboot resolved it.

Answer 13

Closing PHPStorm fixed the issue for me.

Answer 14

just close the VS Code to solve the issue for me

Answer 15

I am using macOS catalina ,
npm init
I got error
operation not permitted, uv_cwd
in 2021, this is how you can fix this problem.
very simple:
step 1: go to parent folder
cd ../
step 2: go to your project folder again,
cd your-project-folder
That is it. It works.

Answer 16

I did the following:
Upgraded the npm to the latest version: npm install -g
npm#6.5.0-next.0
deleted the npm-cache folder from: c:/users/[username]/AppData/Roaming/npm-cache
Did cache clean : npm cache clean --force
Ran the npm install.

Answer 17

I struggeled with this too.
I finaly a solution that works fine if you use nvm:
cd ~/.nvm/versions/node/{your node version}/lib/
npm install npm
and that's it.

Answer 18

I'm using the terminal in VSCode and I realized I was using the bash terminal instead of the node terminal.

Answer 19

npm was failing for me at scandir for:
npm install -g webpack
...which might be caused by npm attempting to "modify" files that were potentially locked by other processes as mentioned here and in few other github threads. After force cleaning the cache, verifying cache, running as admin, disabling the AV, etc the solution that actually worked for me was closing any thing that might be placing a lock the files (i.e. restarting my computer).
I hope this helps someone struggling.

Answer 20

I had the same problem. The reason for the error is unsupported characters in the path to the file. Replaced the cyrillic in English - it helped.

Answer 21

For some, AppRoot\npm folder could be an issue. Sometimes the AppRoot folder is marked as network shared and thus Antivirus blocks the stuff. Follow below link for complete solution.
https://alastaircrabtree.com/fixing-intermittant-eperm-operation-not-permitted-on-npm-install/
I hope this helps.

Answer 22

Open the command prompt as administrator and navigate to the project location and then run npm install. it worked for me.

Answer 23

I remounted my window disks with the metadata flag, and instantly helped: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/chmod-chown-wsl-improvements/
after that no need anymore to use sudo for npm commands as the metadata keeps windows and linux file/directory permissions in check.

Answer 24

In my case running npm: v6.9.0 && node: v10.16.1 on Windows, I had to run my CLI (git bash) as administrator. Then packages were installed without any warnings/errors

Answer 25

I had the same problem after updating to npm to 5.4.2, npm start giving the same error for most npm commands. Some solution suggest to run it with --no-optional, but it didn't always work.
Others suggested to downgrade, but I didn't want to downgrade.
I suspected that there was a problem with the installation, not sure what it was.
So I re-updated my npm:
npm i -g npm
and worked fine since then.

Answer 26

run the CLI as administrator always solve the problem for me

Answer 27

I came here with the same error, followed all the answers here, and none solved it. I started going through my package.json removing all suspicious packages. Removing this unnecessary one solved our problem. "npm": "^8.3.2"

Answer 28

I think it should be related to updating npm issue. As a workaround for now you can specify npm version as 8.3.1.
- name: Install latest npm version
run: npm install --global npm#8.3.1

Answer 29

I'm updating Angular 13 to 14 and I faced this issue.
None of these solutions worked so I just restarted the laptop and the npm i --force worked!
It seems like one process on the background is locking the access to certain node_modules files (you may have an ng serve running somewhere, or been launched by a git bash which you close but kept running on the background)

Answer 30

My answer is to do npm cache clean --force first. Then run npm install -g npm#5.3.0 to install npm 5.3.0 version. for me, this npm version works with no trouble.