npm Windows 7 error

Question

I am helping someone get through running npm in Windows 7. When npm update is executed, the following error (ENOENT, scandir) is returned. But the folder that npm could not find has been verified to exist, and the user running npm has full permissions on the folder. Below are the details of the npm-debug.log for this error:

18265 silly fetchPackageMetaData   errno: -4058,
18265 silly fetchPackageMetaData   code: 'ENOENT',
18265 silly fetchPackageMetaData   syscall: 'scandir',
18265 silly fetchPackageMetaData   path: 'C:\\Users\<\userpath\>\\npm-cache\\_git-remotes\\git-github-com-polymerelements-test-fixture-git-8142662e\\HEAD' }
18266 silly rollbackFailedOptional Starting
18267 silly rollbackFailedOptional Finishing
18268 silly runTopLevelLifecycles Finishing
18269 silly install printInstalled
18270 verbose stack Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir 'C:\Users\\<userpath\>\npm-cache\_git-remotes\git-github-com-polymerelements-test-fixture-git-8142662e\HEAD'
18271 verbose cwd C:\Users\\<userpath\>\git\PredixDev\predix-seed
18272 error Windows_NT 6.1.7601
18273 error argv "G:\\nodejs\\node.exe" "G:\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "update" "--no-optional"
18274 error node v7.2.0
18275 error npm  v3.10.9
18276 error path C:\Users\\<userpath\>\npm-cache\_git-remotes\git-github-com-polymerelements-test-fixture-git-8142662e\HEAD
18277 error code ENOENT
18278 error errno -4058
18279 error syscall scandir
18280 error enoent ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir 'C:\Users\\<userpath\>\npm-cache\_git-remotes\git-github-com-polymerelements-test-fixture-git-8142662e\HEAD'
18281 error enoent ENOENT: no such file or directory, scandir 'C:\Users\\<userpath\>\npm-cache\_git-remotes\git-github-com-polymerelements-test-fixture-git-8142662e\HEAD'
18281 error enoent This is most likely not a problem with npm itself
18281 error enoent and is related to npm not being able to find a file.
18282 verbose exit [ -4058, true ]

I'm not familiar at all with using Node on Windows. Please help, thank you. (NOTE: I've replaced specific user folder information above with \ to sanitize the info.)

Answer 1

One possible cause is security software that filters access to the file system, like DigitalGuardian. If it's a corporate machine with something like that installed, you may need to get your IT people to whitelist Node.

https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/10729