Node Newbie Error – NPM Refusing to Install Package as a Dependency of Itself

Published February 23, 2016 · 2 min · 
Image of Dave Johnson Dave Johnson
 

Javascript Node.js Npm
Summary

I faced a frustrating issue while trying to install the winston npm module in a project directory named "winston," which led to an error stating that npm refuses to install a package as a dependency of itself. The solution was simple: by renaming the project to "winston-test" in the package.json file, the installation proceeded without any problems, allowing me to successfully utilize the logging capabilities of the winston module.

I encountered an error and thought I’d post the solution here since it just might happen to you sometime!  Here’s the scenario:

I was planning to take the winston npm module out for a spin to try out it’s awesome logging capabilities.  I created a directory called winston to create a project and conduct the test.  What would be more logical than that?  🙂

Next, I ran npm init to create a package.json file hitting my Enter key as fast as it could go to accept all the defaults for this throwaway test project:

npm init screencast gif

It looks like we are good to go!  Let’s go ahead and install winston locally with the

--save flag to save the dependency in the package.json file.

npm install winston --save

We are greeted with the following error:

npm ERR! Windows_NT 10.0.10586
npm ERR! argv "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Users\\Dave\\AppData\\Roaming\\npm\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "install" "winston"
npm ERR! node v5.3.0
npm ERR! npm  v3.6.0
npm ERR! code ENOSELF

npm ERR! Refusing to install winston as a dependency of itself
npm ERR!
npm ERR! If you need help, you may report this error at:
npm ERR!     <https://github.com/npm/npm/issues>

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     C:\!projects\node\winston\npm-debug.log

Uh oh, this is not looking good.  This looks like a serious error.  Winston is not able to install a dependency of itself.  What is the solution?

Let’s inspect the package.json file:

{
  "name": "winston",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC"
}

On line 2, we see that the name of our project is winston.  I don’t think npm likes that since we are trying to install a package named “winston”.  Let’s rename our project to “winston-test”, and save the package.json file:

{
  "name": "winston-test",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC"
}

Let’s now try to install the npm package again:

npm install winston --save

This time, the npm package installs successfully:

[email protected] C:\!projects\node\winston
`-- [email protected]
  +-- [email protected]
  +-- [email protected]
  +-- [email protected]
  +-- [email protected]
  +-- [email protected]
  +-- [email protected]
  `-- [email protected]

npm WARN [email protected] No description
npm WARN [email protected] No repository field.

You will see that npm does give us a couple of warning messages, but these are nothing we need to worry about for testing and learning purposes.  We are back in business!

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