npm install gets stuck at fetchMetadata

Question

I\'m currently unable to run npm install in any project since today. I\'m running node v8.2.1 & npm 5.3.0 (installed via nvm).

When typing npm

Answer 1

I got stuck when doing npm install with couchdb-fauxton, I normally sit behind a corporation firewall and uses proxy everywhere, but switched to a direct connection, because using npm config proxy didn't work out for me. But the npm install uses git, which I still set to use proxy, that's how my install got stuck. After disable the proxy in git, it worked.

Answer 2

May be you are sitting behind a corporation firewall which uses proxy everywhere. Depending on your situation, you may to modify local .npmrc for your current project instead of the global one that affects all npm commands on your computer.

You can equivalently set the configuration properties using commands of the form "npm config set ", e.g. npm config set registry http://registry.npmjs.org/

Execute below commands on terminal:-

npm config set registry <CORPORATE_ARTIFACTORY>

npm config set  https-proxy null

npm config set  proxy null

Answer 3

As a first thing, run npm install --verbose to see more!

What happened in my case:

In your package.json search for packages you directly get from Github. In my case such a package did not exist anymore. Such lines look like

"NAME_OF_PACKAGE": "git+ssh://git@github.com/SOME_USER/NAME_OF_PACKAGE.git",

Remove the package, fix the name/location or change to the npm version of the package.

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Further note: I got several other similar errors, all the same but the package name was different from longest@^1.0.1. I also had p-try@something or array-ify@something

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For me all that didn't work: rm -rf ~/.npm, npm cache clean or rm package-lock.json all didn't work!

Answer 4

The question is quite old but I've fallen into this scenario these days.

I tried every suggestion I read to solve the problem related to the npm installation process (npm cache clear and verify, uninstall and reinstall the package, uninstall and install everything and so on...) that looks like the "locked-in" syndrome. Nothing was successful in my case.

Once I found that my network was fully up and running without any firewall, proxy and/or strange routing rules I started installing packages with (example for the cli) npm install -g @angular/cli --verbose and I discovered that all the connections to the URL registry.npmjs.org were done in https. This was the problem in my case.

For an unknown reason npm fails in a not very clear condition during the connection with the remote server, without any network error or warning. Simply it takes an huge amount of time to retrieve the data. Permissions? SSL certificates or some specific checking on it? Some strange route on the net?

At the moment are just a speculations. I left the computer running all night and the packages were installed correctly but this is crazy. Isn't it?

After switching the connections to http with the command npm config set registry http://registry.npmjs.org/ --global everything has worked fine in a reasonable time for the installation packages process.

Probably there is something more that I'm missing but in my case the plain http has resolved the problem.

Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS / node v8.12.0 / npm 6.4.1 / nvm 0.33.11

Answer 5

In my case removing packge connected to the one that loads forever solve issue

    "swagger-core-api": "apigee-127/swagger-core-api" //removing this 

But the real reason of similar problems is project without full git data pushed to github(due to mess in .gitconfig). Then github clone copy files that not match one in repository (or Download ZIP).

Answer 6

1. REASON: the reason for this is: the cli do not prompt: "Enter passphrase for /home/USERS/.ssh/id_rsa:" and I used to get the prompt correctly in npm@5, but update to npm@6, it occurs.
2. SOLVE: # eval `ssh-agent` # ssh-add //automaticlly enter passphrase, without maunally operating.