Why are my Yeoman generators installing in the wrong place?

Question

I have a problem with Yeoman generators. They install just fine if I run \"npm install [generator-name] -g\". However when I try to run \"yo [generator-name] yeoman can\'t s

Answer 1

I hit this issue and I'm hoping it will help someone. I believe upgrading NPM caused this initial issue for me.

/usr/local/lib/node_modules

Was the location of a lot of my modules in the past. Since upgrading node at some point, the directory became

/usr/local/share/npm/lib/node_modules

When I would run new installations such as:

npm install -g grunt-cli

I since I run grunt from the command line it wouldn't 'find' it (that's because it wasn't in my new node_modules dir). I set up this up in my .bash_profile:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/share/npm/bin

Now I am pointing to the new node_modules directory So all the new npm modules I install find the right location: /usr/local/share/npm/lib/node_modules

But not yo

I ran a which yo and my path was

/usr/local/bin/yo

This binary was pointing to the OLD node_modules installation @

/usr/local/lib/node_modules

My solution was to do this

rm /usr/local/bin/yo
npm remove -g yo

The old reference to yo is gone for keeps, now I can do

npm install -g yo

This will add it to the new node_modules location

/usr/local/share/npm/lib/node_modules

and now the new 'yo' references the proper node_modules installation base

source ~/.bash_profile

then we can see yo is referenced from the proper spot

which yo
/usr/local/share/npm/bin/yo

all future generators will be placed in the proper node_modules directory and yo will be able to find them without a problem!