“Couldn't read dependencies” error with npm

Question

I wanted to start a Node app and created a package.json file with a tutorial. Here is the json file:

{
    \"name\": \"Dashboard\",         


        

Answer 1

I resolved that problem just moving my project from E: to C:. I think it happened becouse nodejs and npm was installed in my C: and the project was in my E:

Answer 2

I ran into this problem after I cloned a git repository to a directory, renamed the directory, then tried to run npm install. I'm not sure what the problem was, but something was bungled. Deleting everything, re-cloning (this time with the correct directory name), and then running npm install resolved my issue.

Answer 3

For me it was the version. Yes, the line you put at the root, like :

{
    "name": "your-project",
    "version": "0.1"
    ...
}

Yes, npm doesn't like version like this, it prefers something like "0.0.1".

Don't ask me why, I'll tell you it's totally stupid (or "how to loose time easily")

Answer 4

Verify user account, you are working on. If any system user has no permissions for installation packages, npm particulary also is showing this message.

Answer 5

My mistake was the I named the file packages.json instead of package.json

Answer 6

This doesn't look like your issue, but for the sake of others, for me this was caused by an invalid version number in package.json (had to change 2.4 to 2.4.0).