Node error Cannot read property ‘resolve’ of undefined

I am using reactjs and am unable to install any packages using npm install. The error message I’m getting is :

npm ERR! Cannot read property 'resolve' of undefined

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/stash/.npm/_logs/2019-03-11T10_07_30_264Z-debug.log

When I do npm install -verbose:

npm info it worked if it ends with ok
npm verb cli [ '/usr/local/bin/node',
npm verb cli   '/usr/local/bin/npm',
npm verb cli   'install',
npm verb cli   '-verbose' ]
npm info using npm@6.7.0
npm info using node@v11.10.1
npm verb npm-session 869376d36eca27b5
npm info lifecycle proj-lite@1.0.0-alpha.6~preinstall: proj-lite@1.0.0-alpha.6
npm timing stage:loadCurrentTree Completed in 22ms
npm timing stage:loadIdealTree:cloneCurrentTree Completed in 1ms
npm timing stage:loadIdealTree:loadShrinkwrap Completed in 1231ms
npm timing stage:rollbackFailedOptional Completed in 1ms
npm timing stage:runTopLevelLifecycles Completed in 2661ms
npm verb stack TypeError: Cannot read property 'resolve' of undefined
npm verb stack     at regFetch (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-registry-fetch/index.js:76:23)
npm verb stack     at fetchPackument (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/pacote/lib/fetchers/registry/packument.js:42:10)
npm verb stack     at packument (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/pacote/lib/fetchers/registry/packument.js:20:10)
npm verb stack     at getManifest (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/pacote/lib/fetchers/registry/manifest.js:22:10)
npm verb stack     at manifest (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/pacote/lib/fetchers/registry/manifest.js:13:10)
npm verb stack     at Object.manifest (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/pacote/lib/fetchers/registry/index.js:17:12)
npm verb stack     at Object.Fetcher#manifest [as manifest] (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/genfun/lib/genfun.js:15:38)
npm verb stack     at manifest (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/pacote/lib/fetch.js:23:18)
npm verb stack     at pinflight (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/pacote/manifest.js:24:12)
npm verb stack     at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/promise-inflight/inflight.js:29:24
npm verb stack     at Promise._execute (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/bluebird/js/release/debuggability.js:313:9)
npm verb stack     at Promise._resolveFromExecutor (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/bluebird/js/release/promise.js:483:18)
npm verb stack     at new Promise (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/bluebird/js/release/promise.js:79:10)
npm verb stack     at _inflight (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/promise-inflight/inflight.js:28:25)
npm verb stack     at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/promise-inflight/inflight.js:22:14
npm verb stack     at tryCatcher (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/bluebird/js/release/util.js:16:23)
npm verb cwd /var/www/html/lite-proj/lite-proj
npm verb Linux 4.4.0-142-generic
npm verb argv "/usr/local/bin/node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "install" "-verbose"
npm verb node v11.10.1
npm verb npm  v6.7.0
npm ERR! Cannot read property 'resolve' of undefined
npm verb exit [ 1, true ]
npm timing npm Completed in 3862ms

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/stash/.npm/_logs/2019-03-11T10_12_15_921Z-debug.log

I am not even able to uninstall npm and reinstall it as I am getting the same error when I try to uninstall. What is the issue here and how do I fix it?

Answer

The reason for the error was probably conflicting global packages and node versions. I uninstalled node and npm and then reinstalled them.

To remove nodejs and associated packages (like npm):

sudo apt-get purge --auto-remove nodejs

Nodejs and npm will leave files in the system which may cause issues during reinstallation. I had to remove them as well.

Although it is a bad practice to remove packages manually (it may cause problems with the package manager), it helped my case. This answer shows how to remove nodejs and related files manually.

To reinstall them:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nodejs
sudo apt-get install npm