Why is my npm install failing on Mac for React Native? - macos

Question

New to React Native I've made sure to install node.js from here and after install I'm told:
Node.js v9.5.0 to /usr/local/bin/node
npm v5.6.0 to /usr/local/bin/npm
I can verify the node version:
node --version: v9.5.0
I ran the documentation's getting started for npm install:
npm install -g create-react-native-app
and also referenced building projects and installed watchman with brew:
watchman 4.9.0
in the terminal ran: npm install -g react-native-cli and terminal: npm start and I get:
grim ~/react-native/react-native npm start
> react-native#1000.0.0 start /Users/grim/React-Native/react-native
> /usr/bin/env bash -c './scripts/packager.sh "$#" || true' --
module.js:557
throw err;
^
Error: Cannot find module 'graceful-fs'
at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:555:15)
at Function.Module._load (module.js:482:25)
at Module.require (module.js:604:17)
at require (internal/module.js:11:18)
at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/grim/React-Native/react-native/local-cli/cli.js:12:1)
at Module._compile (module.js:660:30)
at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:671:10)
at Module.load (module.js:573:32)
at tryModuleLoad (module.js:513:12)
at Function.Module._load (module.js:505:3)
grim ~/react-native/react-native
After research I found NPM, cannot find 'graceful-fs', no matter what I do and in terminal ran:
sudo npm install -g graceful-fs
and get:
+ graceful-fs#4.1.11
added 1 package in 0.678s
but when I run npm install I get:
npm ERR! code EUNSUPPORTEDPROTOCOL
npm ERR! Unsupported URL Type "npm:": npm:babylon#^7.0.0-beta
npm WARN deprecated gulp-util#3.0.8: gulp-util is deprecated - replace it, following the guidelines at https://medium.com/gulpjs/gulp-util-ca3b1f9f9ac5
npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR! /Users/grim/.npm/_logs/2018-02-08T17_08_50_619Z-debug.log
and in the file log it shows:
116 error code EUNSUPPORTEDPROTOCOL
117 error Unsupported URL Type "npm:": npm:babylon#^7.0.0-beta
so I went to The Problem with gulp-util but when I do:
npm ls gulp-util
I get └── (empty).
Further research I found Why is my npm install not working? but that throws an npm ERR! What am I doing wrong and how can I get npm successfully installed on my Mac running Seirra?
What caused this was trying to test RNTester from the react native repo and it told me:
git clone https://github.com/facebook/react-native.git
cd react-native
npm install
Edit
Per the suggested answer already tried brew install node and was told with a warning node 9.5.0 is already installed so tried brew link node then prompted:
grim ~/react-native/react-native brew link node
Linking /usr/local/Cellar/node/9.5.0...
Error: Could not symlink bin/node
Target /usr/local/bin/node
already exists. You may want to remove it:
rm '/usr/local/bin/node'
To force the link and overwrite all conflicting files:
brew link --overwrite node
To list all files that would be deleted:
brew link --overwrite --dry-run node
so ran brew link --overwrite node.
Edit
Browsing through my files under Users/grim I found a directory with modules in it named node_modules could that be in the wrong location?
Edit
After further research I found Fixing npm On Mac OS X for Homebrew Users and ran:
rm -rf /usr/local/lib/node_modules
brew uninstall node
brew install node --without-npm
echo prefix=~/.npm-packages >> ~/.npmrc
curl -L https://www.npmjs.com/install.sh | sh
modified my ~/.bash_profile with nano:
export PATH="$HOME/.npm-packages/bin:$PATH"
ran npm install and received a missing package.json file so in the terminal did npm init and answered the questions. Went back and pointed to the cloned repo and when I run npm install:
npm ERR! code EUNSUPPORTEDPROTOCOL
npm ERR! Unsupported URL Type "npm:": npm:babylon#^7.0.0-beta
npm WARN deprecated gulp-util#3.0.8: gulp-util is deprecated - replace it, following the guidelines at https://medium.com/gulpjs/gulp-util-ca3b1f9f9ac5
but if I build a new project with react-native init AwesomeProject and npm install I get:
up to date in 0.416s
and I can point into the project and do react-native run-ios and it works but react-native run-android has to be tweaked in the build.bundle from: classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.2.3' to classpath "com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.1.0"

Answer 1

Use Homebrew for Mac as package manager;
https://brew.sh/
then you can run: brew install node
There are many other utilities on this.

Answer 2

create-react-native app does not work with npm 5.
I had the same problem on Windows and downgraded my npm to 4 you can use npm i -g npm#4 to downgrade.

Answer 3

You may try to use yarn command with -W flag (or --ignore-workspace-root-check) which might be helpful.
info Visit https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/cli/add for documentation about this command.
Regards