Global packages no longer work after node.js update with homebrew

[publicarray]

Do you want to request a feature or report a bug?
Bug

What is the current behavior?

When node and yarn are installed with homebrew yarn global bin returns a path that is tied to the a specific version of node. If node is updated with brew the symlinks are no longer valid, i.e global packages with binaries need to be reinstalled.

~ ❯ yarn global bin
/usr/local/Cellar/node/7.2.0/bin

Related issue: Homebrew/homebrew-core#7283

If the current behavior is a bug, please provide the steps to reproduce.

I've used brew reinstall to emulate an update, I'm not sure how different it is to brew upgrade node.

~ ❯ brew install node
~ ❯ node --version
v7.2.0
~ ❯ brew install yarn
~ ❯ yarn global bin
/usr/local/Cellar/node/7.2.0/bin
~ ❯ yarn global add bower
~ ❯ bower --version
1.8.0
~ ❯ brew reinstall node --HEAD
~ ❯ node --version
v8.0.0-head
~ ❯ yarn global bin
/usr/local/Cellar/node/HEAD-11b0872/bin
~ ❯ bower --version
command not found: bower

What is the expected behavior?

~ ❯ bower --version
1.8.0

Please mention your node.js, yarn and operating system version.

~ ❯ yarn --version
0.17.9
~ ❯ node --version
v7.2.0
~ ❯ sw_vers
ProductName: Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.12.1
BuildVersion: 16B2555

[nicgordon]

The same issue exists for node installed via nvm:

~ $ which node
/Users/nicgordon/.nvm/versions/node/v7.2.0/bin/node
~ $ yarn global bin
/Users/nicgordon/.nvm/versions/node/v7.2.0/bin
~ $ yarn global add gatsby
~ $ which gatsby
gatsby not found

However adding this prefix flag symlinks the installed module into /usr/local/bin and fixes the issue for me

~ $ yarn global add gatsby --prefix /usr/local
~ $ which gatsby
/usr/local/bin/gatsby

Checking the symlink shows me that the module was actually installed here:

/Users/nicgordon/.config/yarn/global/node_modules/.bin/gatsby

Found this solution here #1877

[publicarray]

Thank you, however I personally think that your fix is more of a work around and not a permanent solution. I was looking to start a discussion of how this could be handled within yarn or brew so that yarn global packages are not effected on a node.js version change. On the other hand npm global packages function fine after a brew upgrade node.

[kamui545]

I had the same issue several times too.
It would be nice to have this working without the prefix setting

[gutenye]

same issue here, is there a permanent solution?

[OmgImAlexis]

Got the same issue here.

[iddan]

same issue

[bradley-curran]

Yarn adds a symlink of the executables to node's bin directory.
In my instance it was /usr/local/Cellar/node/7.2.1.
The actual place where the global packages are installed is ~/.config/yarn/global/node_modules/.

When I updated to node 7.4.0 from 7.2.1 the symlinks weren't added to the new version. I'm guessing you're seeing the same thing.

The problem is, there's no way of using yarn right now to fix this.

You could write a script that does something along the lines of:

• Get the global packages directory for yarn
• Find all the files that are executable
• Symlink all the files into your current node directory

I'll write an npm package later that does all this.

[bradley-curran]

Hey guys,

I've written an npm package that should fix your yarn-installed global packages.

$ npm install -g fix-yarn-global-packages
$ fix-yarn-global-packages

That should fix all your global packages. Let me know if it doesn't work for you.

https://www.npmjs.com/package/fix-yarn-global-packages

[publicarray]

Thanks @bradley-curran but I personally prefer to just add alias yarn-global='yarn global --prefix /usr/local' to my dotfiles until this is fixed.

[bradley-curran]

I've been doing some more digging and it seems the issue is that yarn doesn't read all npm config files that npm itself uses.

Yarn should read all files defined in npm's npmrc documentation

Currently yarn only reads config files from:

• ./.npmrc
• ~/.npmrc
• <node directory>/.npmrc (<node directory> = /usr/local/Cellar/node/7.6.0/ for me)

The config files that also need to be read include:

• $PREFIX/etc/npmrc ($PREFIX is usually /usr/local)
• path/to/npm/itself/npmrc

The problem is that these files can't be found easily using the existing architecture afaict.
Ideally the existing config loading would be replaced with delegating to npm config ls -l and parsing the result rather than trying to read all the files.

Quick Fix

• Open ~/.npmrc in your favourite text editor.
• Add the line prefix = /usr/local

The Real Fix

Read all configuration files, ideally by delegating to npm config, rather than reading existing INI files. I'd be happy to contribute, though I'm not really sure who I can discuss implementation details with.

[publicarray]

@bradley-curran thanks so much for looking into this, from now on I'll use the npmrc file. (I didn't know that the npmrc existed until now). Just a small word of warning that npm will also install global packages to the prefix set in in the npmrc and no longer in /usr/local/Cellar/node/7.6.0/ as previously.

[mkutny]

Agree it should not install into /usr/local/Cellar/node/version .

As a temporary fix, it's now possible to yarn config set prefix /usr/local -g

Although this prefix should be set by default on yarn installation.

[publicarray]

Similar issue: #2639

[publicarray]

Thanks @mkutny, is the -g flag supposed to do something? for me the config file that is modified is always ~/.yarnrc