16.14.2 ships with buggy npm

[haggholm]

Version

v16.14.2

Platform

Linux glaurung 5.15.23-76051523-generic #202202110435164495230021.10~96763f1 SMP Tue Feb 15 19:52:40 U x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Subsystem

No response

What steps will reproduce the bug?

In a Yarn monorepo,

yarn workspace some-workspace test

How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?

Every time

What is the expected behavior?

Tests should run

What do you see instead?

From a test script,

Error: Command failed: npm root -g
npm ERR! Workspaces not supported for global packages

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/petter/.npm/_logs/2022-03-19T01_58_39_948Z-debug-0.log

    at ChildProcess.exithandler (node:child_process:399:12)
    at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:526:28)
    at maybeClose (node:internal/child_process:1092:16)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:302:5) {
  killed: false,
  code: 1,
  signal: null,
  cmd: 'npm root -g'
}

Additional information

This is a known bug in npm as of 8.5.0, fixed in npm/config#47

It’s resolved as of 8.5.5, but because Node 16.14.2 ships with the broken 8.5.0, it means it affects default nvm installs and anything that (like Github actions we rely on) can respect .nvmrc but offer no place to specify --latest-npm.

Releasing a Node 16 version with a newer npm should resolve the issue, I expect.

[Trott]

Fixed in 76d85a8 which will make it's way to a 16.x release at some point.

[haggholm]

Fixed in 76d85a8 which will make it's way to a 16.x release at some point.

👍 Good to hear. Is there any way to get a sense of when “some point” will happen? I realise it sounds self-serving (of course I think that the bug I reported needs a release, being Special); but it genuinely seems to me that pulling the latest image and running yarn may be a very common action in CI pipelines etc. for many people.

[Trott]

Is there any way to get a sense of when “some point” will happen?

It looks like it will go out in 17.8.0 some time in the next 48 hours (if all goes according to plan). #42425

From there, it's usually another 2 or 3 weeks before it shows up in an active LTS release, but it can be faster or slower than that depending on various factors. (If someone on the releasers team wants to chime in and provide somewhat more authoritative information, please do!)

[BethGriggs]

The next release is scheduled for 2022-04-05 (nodejs/Release#658). Sometimes we do expedite or do additional interim releases to fix more critical bugs, but that's dependent on releaser's availability.

/cc @nodejs/npm

[Brandons404]

I am also seeing this issue, I hope it gets released soon.