Why are my Yeoman generators installing in the wrong place?

Question

I have a problem with Yeoman generators. They install just fine if I run \"npm install [generator-name] -g\". However when I try to run \"yo [generator-name] yeoman can\'t s

Answer 1

Sounds like your npm may be out of whack. Check where things are installed: npm config get prefix Is that where you expected the packages to install? Is that where they are currently installed?

To list whats in there:

ls $(npm config get prefix)/lib/node_modules

That will list out the globally installed npm packages.

npm list -g

Will list the currently installed things. Make sure yo and the generators are listed at the top level.

To remove the yo stuff and start over:

npm remove -g yo generator-* yeoman-generator
npm install -g yo generator-angular

That should fix things.

Answer 2

I uninstalled yeoman entirely, then re-installed it

npm remove -g yo
npm install -g yo

This fixed my problem with missing angular generators.

Answer 3

I hit this issue and I'm hoping it will help someone. I believe upgrading NPM caused this initial issue for me.

/usr/local/lib/node_modules

Was the location of a lot of my modules in the past. Since upgrading node at some point, the directory became

/usr/local/share/npm/lib/node_modules

When I would run new installations such as:

npm install -g grunt-cli

I since I run grunt from the command line it wouldn't 'find' it (that's because it wasn't in my new node_modules dir). I set up this up in my .bash_profile:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/share/npm/bin

Now I am pointing to the new node_modules directory So all the new npm modules I install find the right location: /usr/local/share/npm/lib/node_modules

But not yo

I ran a which yo and my path was

/usr/local/bin/yo

This binary was pointing to the OLD node_modules installation @

/usr/local/lib/node_modules

My solution was to do this

rm /usr/local/bin/yo
npm remove -g yo

The old reference to yo is gone for keeps, now I can do

npm install -g yo

This will add it to the new node_modules location

/usr/local/share/npm/lib/node_modules

and now the new 'yo' references the proper node_modules installation base

source ~/.bash_profile

then we can see yo is referenced from the proper spot

which yo
/usr/local/share/npm/bin/yo

all future generators will be placed in the proper node_modules directory and yo will be able to find them without a problem!

Answer 4

I tried installing Yeoman on an Ubuntu precise32 vagrant vm. I ran into the same problem: Yeoman did not find the generators I installed, although there were no errors during the installation of these generators. Files were in place and permissions seemed alright.

The above solutions didn't work for me.

I ran

yo doctor

to see what was wrong, and as it turned out, the following was the problem:

[Yeoman Doctor] Uh oh, I found potential errors on your machine
---------------

[Error] NPM root value is not in your NODE_PATH
  [info]
    NODE_PATH = /usr/lib/nodejs:/usr/lib/node_modules:/usr/share/javascript
    NPM root  = /home/vagrant/npm/lib/node_modules

  [Fix] Append the NPM root value to your NODE_PATH variable
    Add this line to your .bashrc
      export NODE_PATH=$NODE_PATH:/home/vagrant/npm/lib/node_modules
    Or run this command
      echo "export NODE_PATH=$NODE_PATH:/home/vagrant/npm/lib/node_modules" >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc

The fix suggested by the Yeoman Doctor worked as advertised.