NPM cannot install dependencies - Attempt to unlock something which hasn't been locked

Question

I\'ve been trying to run an npm install on my package.json file, but I\'m having a lot of trouble. It keeps saying \"Error: Attempt to unlock XXX, which hasn\'t been locke

Answer 1

In my case the issue was invoking npm with a user that does not have a HOME directory, so for example the following command would fail:

sudo -u someUser npm install

The solution is to provide a HOME directory, where someUser has write access:

sudo -u someUser HOME=/some/directory npm install