How to resolve npm 'Missing required argument' error when doing npm install

Feb 6, 2025

Cowrie

Dev @ Bswen

1. Purpose

In this post, I will demonstrate how to resolve the following error when running npm install:

npm install error

root@launch-advisor-20191120:/opt/White-Jotter/wj-vue# npm install
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: core-js@<3.3 is no longer maintained and not recommended for usage due to the number of issues. Because of the V8 engine whims, feature detection in old core-js versions could cause a slowdown up to 100x even if nothing is polyfilled. Please, upgrade your dependencies to the actual version of core-js.
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: Support has ended for 9.x series. Upgrade to @latest
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: request has been deprecated, see https://github.com/request/request/issues/3142
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: This version of tar is no longer supported, and will not receive security updates. Please upgrade asap.
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: this library is no longer supported
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: Please upgrade  to version 7 or higher.  Older versions may use Math.random() in certain circumstances, which is known to be problematic.  See https://v8.dev/blog/math-random for details.
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: babel-eslint is now @babel/eslint-parser. This package will no longer receive updates.
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: This loader has been deprecated. Please use eslint-webpack-plugin
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: Deprecated. Please use https://github.com/webpack-contrib/mini-css-extract-plugin
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: out of support
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: Browserslist 2 could fail on reading Browserslist >3.0 config used in other tools.
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: Browserslist 2 could fail on reading Browserslist >3.0 config used in other tools.
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: flatten is deprecated in favor of utility frameworks such as lodash.
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: This SVGO version is no longer supported. Upgrade to v2.x.x.
npm WARN deprecated [email protected]: CircularJSON is in maintenance only, flatted is its successor.
npm ERR! Linux 4.15.0-128-generic
npm ERR! argv "/usr/bin/node" "/usr/bin/npm" "install"
npm ERR! node v8.10.0
npm ERR! npm  v3.5.2
npm ERR! code EMISSINGARG

npm ERR! typeerror Error: Missing required argument #1
npm ERR! typeerror     at andLogAndFinish (/usr/share/npm/lib/fetch-package-metadata.js:31:3)
npm ERR! typeerror     at fetchPackageMetadata (/usr/share/npm/lib/fetch-package-metadata.js:51:22)
npm ERR! typeerror     at resolveWithNewModule (/usr/share/npm/lib/install/deps.js:456:12)
npm ERR! typeerror     at /usr/share/npm/lib/install/deps.js:457:7
npm ERR! typeerror     at /usr/share/npm/node_modules/iferr/index.js:13:50
npm ERR! typeerror     at /usr/share/npm/lib/fetch-package-metadata.js:37:12
npm ERR! typeerror     at addRequestedAndFinish (/usr/share/npm/lib/fetch-package-metadata.js:82:5)
npm ERR! typeerror     at returnAndAddMetadata (/usr/share/npm/lib/fetch-package-metadata.js:117:7)
npm ERR! typeerror     at pickVersionFromRegistryDocument (/usr/share/npm/lib/fetch-package-metadata.js:134:20)
npm ERR! typeerror     at /usr/share/npm/node_modules/iferr/index.js:13:50
npm ERR! typeerror This is an error with npm itself. Please report this error at:
npm ERR! typeerror     <http://github.com/npm/npm/issues>

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     /opt/White-Jotter/wj-vue/npm-debug.log
root@launch-advisor-20191120:/opt/White-Jotter/wj-vue#

The core error message is:

npm ERR! Linux 4.15.0-128-generic
npm ERR! argv "/usr/bin/node" "/usr/bin/npm" "install"
npm ERR! node v8.10.0
npm ERR! npm  v3.5.2
npm ERR! code EMISSINGARG

npm ERR! typeerror Error: Missing required argument #1
npm ERR! typeerror     at andLogAndFinish (/usr/share/npm/lib/fetch-package-metadata.js:31:3)
npm ERR! typeerror     at fetchPackageMetadata (/usr/share/npm/lib/fetch-package-metadata.js:51:22)
npm ERR! typeerror     at resolveWithNewModule (/usr/share/npm/lib/install/deps.js:456:12)
npm ERR! typeerror     at /usr/share/npm/lib/install/deps.js:457:7
npm ERR! typeerror     at /usr/share/npm/node_modules/iferr/index.js:13:50
npm ERR! typeerror     at /usr/share/npm/lib/fetch-package-metadata.js:37:12
npm ERR! typeerror     at addRequestedAndFinish (/usr/share/npm/lib/fetch-package-metadata.js:82:5)
npm ERR! typeerror     at returnAndAddMetadata (/usr/share/npm/lib/fetch-package-metadata.js:117:7)
npm ERR! typeerror     at pickVersionFromRegistryDocument (/usr/share/npm/lib/fetch-package-metadata.js:134:20)
npm ERR! typeerror     at /usr/share/npm/node_modules/iferr/index.js:13:50
npm ERR! typeerror This is an error with npm itself. Please report this error at:
npm ERR! typeerror     <http://github.com/npm/npm/issues>

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     /opt/White-Jotter/wj-vue/npm-debug.log

2. The environment

• Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS
• npm version

root@launch-advisor-20191120:~# npm version
{ npm: '3.5.2',
  ares: '1.14.0',
  cldr: '32.0.1',
  http_parser: '2.7.1',
  icu: '60.2',
  modules: '57',
  nghttp2: '1.30.0',
  node: '8.10.0',
  openssl: '1.0.2n',
  tz: '2017c',
  unicode: '10.0',
  uv: '1.18.0',
  v8: '6.2.414.50',
  zlib: '1.2.11' }
root@launch-advisor-20191120:~#

3. The solution

It seems that my npm version is too old, it needs to be upgraded, so I tried this:

root@launch-advisor-20191120:~# npm install -g npm
▀ ╢░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░╟
WARN engine [email protected]: wanted: {"node":"^12.13.0 || ^14.15.0 || >=16"} (current: {"node":"8.10.0","npm":"3.5.2"})
/usr/local/lib
└── (empty)

npm ERR! Linux 4.15.0-128-generic
npm ERR! argv "/usr/bin/node" "/usr/bin/npm" "install" "-g" "npm"
npm ERR! node v8.10.0
npm ERR! npm  v3.5.2
npm ERR! path /usr/local/lib/node_modules/.staging/@gar/promisify-ebaab35a
npm ERR! code ENOENT
npm ERR! errno -2
npm ERR! syscall rename

npm ERR! enoent ENOENT: no such file or directory, rename '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/.staging/@gar/promisify-ebaab35a' -> '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@gar/promisify'
npm ERR! enoent ENOENT: no such file or directory, rename '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/.staging/@gar/promisify-ebaab35a' -> '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@gar/promisify'
npm ERR! enoent This is most likely not a problem with npm itself
npm ERR! enoent and is related to npm not being able to find a file.
npm ERR! enoent

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     /root/npm-debug.log
npm ERR! code 1

It’s not working, It seems that the npm and nodejs is integrated by the system, so I decided to remove them from the system:

root@launch-advisor-20191120:~# apt purge npm
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gyp javascript-common libc-ares2 libhttp-parser2.7.1 libjs-async libjs-inherits libjs-jquery libjs-node-uuid libjs-underscore libssl1.0-dev libuv1
  libuv1-dev node-abbrev node-ansi node-ansi-color-table node-archy node-async node-balanced-match node-block-stream node-brace-expansion
  node-builtin-modules node-combined-stream node-concat-map node-cookie-jar node-delayed-stream node-forever-agent node-form-data node-fs.realpath
  node-fstream node-fstream-ignore node-github-url-from-git node-glob node-graceful-fs node-gyp node-hosted-git-info node-inflight node-inherits node-ini
  node-is-builtin-module node-isexe node-json-stringify-safe node-lockfile node-lru-cache node-mime node-minimatch node-mkdirp node-mute-stream
  node-node-uuid node-nopt node-normalize-package-data node-npmlog node-once node-osenv node-path-is-absolute node-pseudomap node-qs node-read
  node-read-package-json node-request node-retry node-rimraf node-semver node-sha node-slide node-spdx-correct node-spdx-expression-parse
  node-spdx-license-ids node-tar node-tunnel-agent node-underscore node-validate-npm-package-license node-which node-wrappy node-yallist nodejs nodejs-dev
  nodejs-doc
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  npm*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 144 not upgraded.
After this operation, 10.7 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
(Reading database ... 117180 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing npm (3.5.2-0ubuntu4) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.8.3-2ubuntu0.1) ...
root@launch-advisor-20191120:~# apt purge node
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package node
root@launch-advisor-20191120:~#

And then install it again:

root@launch-advisor-20191120:~# apt install npm

Then I upgraded npm using the following command:

Node has a module called n, which is specifically used to manage the version of node.js. Use npm (NPM is a package management tool installed with nodejs) to install the n module:

root@launch-advisor-20191120:~# npm install -g n

Then upgrade the node.js to the latest version:

root@launch-advisor-20191120:~# n stable

Now upgrade the npm again:

root@launch-advisor-20191120:~# npm install npm -g

removed 2 packages, changed 15 packages, and audited 219 packages in 7s

10 packages are looking for funding
  run `npm fund` for details

3 moderate severity vulnerabilities

To address all issues, run:
  npm audit fix

Run `npm audit` for details.
npm notice
npm notice New patch version of npm available! 8.1.0 -> 8.1.3
npm notice Changelog: https://github.com/npm/cli/releases/tag/v8.1.3
npm notice Run npm install -g [email protected] to update!
npm notice

Now check the npm version:

root@launch-advisor-20191120:~# npm version
{
  npm: '8.1.3',
  node: '16.13.0',
  v8: '9.4.146.19-node.13',
  uv: '1.42.0',
  zlib: '1.2.11',
  brotli: '1.0.9',
  ares: '1.17.2',
  modules: '93',
  nghttp2: '1.45.1',
  napi: '8',
  llhttp: '6.0.4',
  openssl: '1.1.1l+quic',
  cldr: '39.0',
  icu: '69.1',
  tz: '2021a',
  unicode: '13.0',
  ngtcp2: '0.1.0-DEV',
  nghttp3: '0.1.0-DEV'
}

Now run npm install again:

root@launch-advisor-20191120:~# npm install

up to date, audited 127 packages in 12s

2 moderate severity vulnerabilities

To address all issues, run:
  npm audit fix

Run `npm audit` for details.

Now It’s working!

4. Summary

In this post, I demonstrated how to solve the npm upgrade error, you can try as mine. That’s it, thanks for your reading.

Final Words + More Resources

My intention with this article was to help others who might be considering solving such a problem. So I hope that’s been the case here. If you still have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask me by email: Email me

Here are also the most important links from this article along with some further resources that will help you in this scope:

• 👨‍💻 npm documentation

Oh, and if you found these resources useful, don’t forget to support me by starring the repo on GitHub!

Tags:

• npm

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