react-native node dependency install broke project

Question

I am trying to develop my first android app using react-native and expo for testing, on windows 8.1.

Working from a tutorial I had a working project using react-native components but everything broke when I installed a dependency with

`npm install --save react-navigation`:  

npm-start returned

Error: React native is not installed. Please run 'npm install' in your project directory.

So I ran npm-install again as suggested.
This led to npm-start asking me if I want to install expo-cli globally, and whether I answer yes or no I get the following error:

Installing the package [expo-cli][1]...
events.js:167
      throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
      ^

Error: spawn npm ENOENT
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:232:19)
    at onErrorNT (internal/child_process.js:407:16)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:63:19)
Emitted 'error' event at:
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:238:12)
    at onErrorNT (internal/child_process.js:407:16)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:63:19)
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! empty-project-template@ start: `expo start`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the empty-project-template@ start script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_logs\2018-09-25T21_27_21_053Z-debug.log

The log mentioned in this message is as follows:

0 info it worked if it ends with ok
1 verbose cli [ 'C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe',
1 verbose cli   'C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js',
1 verbose cli   'start' ]
2 info using npm@6.4.1
3 info using node@v10.11.0
4 verbose run-script [ 'prestart', 'start', 'poststart' ]
5 info lifecycle empty-project-template@~prestart: empty-project-template@
6 info lifecycle empty-project-template@~start: empty-project-template@
7 verbose lifecycle empty-project-template@~start: unsafe-perm in lifecycle true
8 verbose lifecycle empty-project-template@~start: PATH: C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\npm-lifecycle\node-gyp-bin;D:\androidProjects\MoviesAndMe\node_modules\.bin;C:\Python27\;C:\Python27\Scripts;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\javapath;C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v8.0\bin;C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v8.0\libnvvp;C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v9.1\bin;C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v9.1\libnvvp;C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3;C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\Library\mingw-w64\bin;C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\Library\usr\bin;C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\Library\bin;C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\Scripts;C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\QuickTime\QTSystem\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone\;C:\Android;C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common;C:\Program Files (x86)\GtkSharp\2.12\bin;C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin;C:\Program Files\nodejs\;C:\Users\me\Documents\Latex\miktex\bin\;C:\Users\me\AppData\Local\atom\bin;C:\Users\me\AppData\Local\hyper\app-2.0.0\resources\bin;C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_181\bin;C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\npm
9 verbose lifecycle empty-project-template@~start: CWD: D:\androidProjects\MoviesAndMe
10 silly lifecycle empty-project-template@~start: Args: [ '/d /s /c', 'expo start' ]
11 silly lifecycle empty-project-template@~start: Returned: code: 1  signal: null
12 info lifecycle empty-project-template@~start: Failed to exec start script
13 verbose stack Error: empty-project-template@ start: `expo start`
13 verbose stack Exit status 1
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.<anonymous> (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\npm-lifecycle\index.js:301:16)
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:182:13)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\npm-lifecycle\lib\spawn.js:55:14)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:182:13)
13 verbose stack     at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:962:16)
13 verbose stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:251:5)
14 verbose pkgid empty-project-template@
15 verbose cwd D:\androidProjects\MoviesAndMe
16 verbose Windows_NT 6.3.9600
17 verbose argv "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "start"
18 verbose node v10.11.0
19 verbose npm  v6.4.1
20 error code ELIFECYCLE
21 error errno 1
22 error empty-project-template@ start: `expo start`
22 error Exit status 1
23 error Failed at the empty-project-template@ start script.
23 error This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
24 verbose exit [ 1, true ]

I searched on StackOverflow and followed the advice to deal with ELIFECYCLE errors found in this answer. runnning npm cache clean then deleting the node_modules directory and package-lock.json buit the error is the same.
I even tried doing these steps as well as removing the react-navigation from my dependencies in my package.json file and in my code before running npm-install again, but it didn't change anything.

It is interesting to note that when running expo start on it's own it manages to launch the bundler and the devtools in the browser just not with the right ip address.

I also don't know if this is important but when running npm-install I get 2 vulnerabilities, when I run npm-audit it indicates that the is a low 'Prototype Pollution' vulnerability in the lodash package and a High 'Denial of Service' vulnerability in the ws package. But nothing changes even after running npm audit fix

Anyway I hope you can help me, thanks!

Answer 1

In my case, angular-cli was not installed so I ran the command as -

npm install -g angular-cli

Answer 2

I was having the same problem.

If you run:

npm i expo-cli

and then

npm start

It will work