~/.npm folder missing - Permissions error updating Nodes

General
1

Hi Folks,

Looking for some help on my 'production system'. I have tried to update my Nodes using Manage Palette and I get the errors below. I can't find the home/pi/.npm directory.

I am pretty sure that I updated my nodes after loading NR 3.1.0 and all went OK. I see ~/.npm on my Development system (Ubuntu 22.04, NR 3.1.0), so assume that it should be there.

Is there anyway that I can regenerate this folder without having to do a rebuild. (Rerun the install script?)

I am the only one that works on these systems and I haven't done any delete commands, or at least, I have not intended to carry out any delete/remove commands! :grinning:

2023-11-16T17:11:04.154Z Install : node-red-contrib-cron-plus 2.1.0

2023-11-16T17:11:04.180Z npm install --no-audit --no-update-notifier --no-fund --save --save-prefix=~ --production --engine-strict node-red-contrib-cron-plus@2.1.0
2023-11-16T17:11:05.686Z [err] npm
2023-11-16T17:11:05.687Z [err]  WARN
2023-11-16T17:11:05.687Z [err]  config production Use `--omit=dev` instead.
2023-11-16T17:11:08.292Z [err] npm
2023-11-16T17:11:08.292Z [err]  
2023-11-16T17:11:08.292Z [err] ERR!
2023-11-16T17:11:08.292Z [err]  code EACCES
2023-11-16T17:11:08.293Z [err] npm
2023-11-16T17:11:08.293Z [err]  ERR! syscall mkdir
2023-11-16T17:11:08.293Z [err] npm
2023-11-16T17:11:08.293Z [err]  ERR!
2023-11-16T17:11:08.294Z [err]  
2023-11-16T17:11:08.294Z [err] path /home/pi/.npm
2023-11-16T17:11:08.296Z [err] npm ERR!
2023-11-16T17:11:08.296Z [err]  errno -13
2023-11-16T17:11:08.300Z [err] npm ERR!
2023-11-16T17:11:08.300Z [err]  
2023-11-16T17:11:08.300Z [err] npm ERR! Your cache folder contains root-owned files, due to a bug in
2023-11-16T17:11:08.300Z [err] npm 
2023-11-16T17:11:08.301Z [err] ERR! previous versions of npm which has since been addressed.
2023-11-16T17:11:08.301Z [err] npm ERR!
2023-11-16T17:11:08.301Z [err]  
2023-11-16T17:11:08.301Z [err] npm 
2023-11-16T17:11:08.301Z [err] ERR!
2023-11-16T17:11:08.301Z [err]  To permanently fix this problem, please run:
2023-11-16T17:11:08.301Z [err] npm ERR!   sudo chown -R 1000:1000 "/home/pi/.npm"
2023-11-16T17:11:08.306Z [err] 
2023-11-16T17:11:08.306Z [err] npm
2023-11-16T17:11:08.306Z [err]  ERR! Log files were not written due to an error writing to the directory: /home/pi/.npm/_logs
2023-11-16T17:11:08.306Z [err] npm ERR!
2023-11-16T17:11:08.306Z [err]  You can rerun the command with `--loglevel=verbose` to see the logs in your terminal

Start up Log

Starting as a systemd service.
16 Nov 17:30:28 - [info]
Welcome to Node-RED
===================
16 Nov 17:30:28 - [info] Node-RED version: v3.1.0
16 Nov 17:30:28 - [info] Node.js  version: v18.18.0
16 Nov 17:30:28 - [info] Linux 5.10.103-v7l+ arm LE
16 Nov 17:30:29 - [info] Loading palette nodes
16 Nov 17:30:35 - [info] Dashboard version 3.4.0 started at /ui
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] Settings file  : /home/pi/.node-red/settings.js
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] Context store  : 'memoryOnly' [module=memory]
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] Context store  : 'storeInFile' [module=localfilesystem]
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] User directory : /home/pi/.node-red
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] Projects directory: /home/pi/.node-red/projects
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] Server now running at http://127.0.0.1:1880/
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] Active project : 2101071_New_Server
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] Flows file     : /home/pi/.node-red/projects/2101071_New_Server/flow.json
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [warn] Using unencrypted credentials
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] +-----------------------------------------------------
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] | uibuilder v6.4.1 initialised
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] | root folder: /home/pi/.node-red/projects/2101071_New_Server/uibuilder
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] | Using Node-RED's webserver at:
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] |   http://0.0.0.0:1880/
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] | Installed packages:
16 Nov 17:30:36 - [info] +-----------------------------------------------------
16 Nov 17:30:37 - [info] Starting flows

Home Directory

ls -la
total 150072
drwxr-xr-x 15 root root     4096 Oct  4 18:32 .
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root     4096 Dec  2  2020 ..
-rw-------  1 pi   pi      34966 Nov 16 17:09 .bash_history
-rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi        220 Dec  2  2020 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi       3523 Dec  2  2020 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x  4 pi   pi       4096 Mar  2  2023 .cache
drwx------  5 pi   pi       4096 Jan  7  2021 .config
drwx------  3 pi   pi       4096 Feb  2  2023 .gnupg
drwx------  5 pi   pi       4096 Jan  9  2021 InfluxDB
drwxr-xr-x  5 pi   pi       4096 Oct 11  2021 influxdb-1.8.10-1
drwxr-xr-x  2 pi   pi      28672 Nov 16 03:36 InfluxDB-storage
-rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi       3140 Mar 12  2023 .influx_history
drwxr-xr-x  3 pi   pi       4096 Jan  7  2021 .local
drwxr-xr-x  7 pi   pi       4096 Nov 16 17:30 .node-red
drwxr-xr-x  2 pi   pi       4096 Nov 16 03:23 node-red-storage
-rw-------  1 pi   pi         22 Oct  4 18:33 .npmrc
drwxr-xr-x  2 pi   pi       4096 Dec 23  2022 NRconfigFiles
-rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi        807 Dec  2  2020 .profile
drwx------  3 pi   pi       4096 May 17  2021 sftp:
drwx------  2 pi   pi       4096 Aug  2  2022 .ssh
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root     4096 Feb 27  2023 telegraf-1.25.3
-rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi     452570 Apr 18  2023 telegraf.conf

Any help gratefully received.
TIA

2

Did you try to follow this advice?

3

I suspect that is actually the problem. Your home folder should be owned by you (pi) I think this might be a good command to use
sudo chown -R pi:pi /home/pi
and see if that fixes it in the ls command.

Editted above command as I had said chmod instead of chown

4

Thank you guys for the help. Much appreciated!
Here are the results of the two commands via ssh to an RPi4 on Raspberry OS (Sorry, forgat that information yesterday.)

@ralphwetzel

sudo chmod -R pi:pi /home/pi
chown: cannot access '/home/pi/.npm': No such file or directory

@Colin

sudo chmod -R pi:pi /home/pi
chmod: invalid mode: ‘pi:pi’
Try 'chmod --help' for more information.

The .npm folder is not there, so I can understand the chown failing. I did try the suggested command from the reported error and that is how I found that .npm was missing. I have no idea why chmod fails.

I ran chown on the pi folder and all permissions are now pi:pi, but still no .npm .

5

The .npm directory is created by npm when it installs new modules. If it’s not there and now the overall directory is owned by pi:pi you should be able to run an npm command (from within the .node-red directory ) and it should now get recreated

6

Thank you Dave.

I was not sure about running this command as I don't understand if it can do damage!
.npm now present and updates in Manage Palette now working!

7

Sorry, as you have worked out, that should have been chown not chmod.
I have corrected my post above in case others find it.