npx create-react-app running with old version

Question

The latest version create-react-app is 4.0.3 but when I run npx create-react-app my-app it uses version 1.5.2 and also doesn't run with templates. I don't have any global installation of it and have tried uninstalling it using npm uninstall -g create-react-app .

My npm version is 7.21.1 and node version is 16.9.1

How can I make it work? Please help.

EDIT: There are 58 vulnerabilities while creating the app and this comes at the end -

A template was not provided. This is likely because you're using an outdated version of create-react-app.
Please note that global installs of create-react-app are no longer supported.
You can fix this by running npm uninstall -g create-react-app or yarn global remove create-react-app before using create-react-app again.

The folder also doesn't have the src folder just the node_modules folder and package.json file.

While running npm audit fix I get this -

tar  <=4.4.17
Severity: high
Arbitrary File Creation/Overwrite on Windows via insufficient relative path sanitization - https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-5955-9wpr-37jh
Arbitrary File Creation/Overwrite via insufficient symlink protection due to directory cache poisoning using symbolic links - https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-9r2w-394v-53qc
Arbitrary File Creation/Overwrite due to insufficient absolute path sanitization - https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-3jfq-g458-7qm9
Arbitrary File Creation/Overwrite via insufficient symlink protection due to directory cache poisoning - https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-r628-mhmh-qjhw
fix available via `npm audit fix`
node_modules/tar
  tar-pack  *
  Depends on vulnerable versions of tar
  node_modules/tar-pack
    create-react-app  >=1.3.0-alpha.58689133
    Depends on vulnerable versions of tar-pack
    node_modules/create-react-app

3 high severity vulnerabilities

Answer 1

Short version:

npx clear-npx-cache

Temporary solution:

npx create-react-app@latest my-app

Now for the explanation. I think npx is running an old version of create-react-app on your computer. The first time you do npx create-react-app , the package is installed in the cache. npx does not check for newer versions if the package is cached. You can sidestep this issue by adding @latest. This forces npx to fetch the package even if it is cached.

A better solution is to clear the cache. There are other guides about how to find and remove the cache folder on windows and macos. The package clear-npx-cache does this.