Cannot start npm/yarn

Question

I decided to create React app under Linux and I've used those commands:

1. npm install -g create-react-app
2. create-react-app my_app_name
3. npm start

At this point I've recieved message:

There might be a problem with the project dependency tree.
It is likely not a bug in Create React App, but something you need to fix locally.

The react-scripts package provided by Create React App requires a dependency:

  "webpack": "4.19.1"

Don't try to install it manually: your package manager does it automatically.
However, a different version of webpack was detected higher up in the tree:

  /home/ktw/node_modules/webpack (version: 4.24.0) 

Manually installing incompatible versions is known to cause hard-to-debug issues.

If prefer to ignore this check, add SKIP_PREFLIGHT_CHECK=true to an .env file in your project.
That will permanently disable this message but you might encounter other issues.

To fix the dependency tree, try following the steps below in the exact order:

  1. Delete package-lock.json (not package.json!) and/or yarn.lock in your project folder.
  2. Delete node_modules in your project folder.
  3. Remove "webpack" from dependencies and/or devDependencies in the package.json file in your project folder.
  4. Run npm install or yarn, depending on the package manager you use.

In most cases, this should be enough to fix the problem.
If this has not helped, there are a few other things you can try:

  5. If you used npm, install yarn (http://yarnpkg.com/) and repeat the above steps with it instead.
     This may help because npm has known issues with package hoisting which may get resolved in future versions.

  6. Check if /home/ktw/node_modules/webpack is outside your project directory.
     For example, you might have accidentally installed something in your home folder.

  7. Try running npm ls webpack in your project folder.
     This will tell you which other package (apart from the expected react-scripts) installed webpack.

I've done literally every step from this list but unfortunately - with no results.

I've already tried:

• chown -R user: node_modules ,
• npm cache clean --force ,
• rm -rf node_modules && rm ./package-lock.json && npm install

and I have no idea what is going on.

Do you guys have any idea how to fix that?

Answer 1

It looks like you may have forgotten to do Step #3: Remove "webpack" from dependencies and/or devDependencies in the package.json file in your project folder.

If you are doing the steps as you outline above, when you do npm install again, because Webpack is still in your package.json, it'll reinstall and continue the issue.