Failing build on fresh install: "package.json doesn't seem to have been installed"

[Dentrax]

Bug Description
Yarn throws the following error on fresh install:

The project in /Users/furkan/src/create-eth-app/package.json doesn't seem to have been installed - running an install there might help

What I've tried so far:

• npm cache clean
• rm -rf node_modules
• yarn install (exits 0)
• Deleting the yarn cache and running yarn install

Steps to Reproduce

1. yarn create eth-app my-eth-app
2. Expect error

$ yarn create eth-app my-eth-app

➤ YN0000: ┌ Resolution step
➤ YN0000: └ Completed
➤ YN0000: ┌ Fetch step
➤ YN0000: └ Completed
➤ YN0000: ┌ Link step
➤ YN0000: └ Completed
➤ YN0000: Done in 0s 84ms


Creating a new Ethereum-powered React app in /Users/furkan/src/create-eth-app/my-eth-app.

Downloading template files. This might take a moment.

Installing packages. This might take a couple of minutes.

Usage Error: The project in /Users/furkan/src/create-eth-app/package.json doesn't seem to have been installed - running an install there might help

$ yarn install [--json] [--immutable] [--immutable-cache] [--check-cache] [--inline-builds] [--mode #0]

Aborting installation.
  yarnpkg install --cwd /Users/furkan/src/create-eth-app/my-eth-app has failed.

Expected Behavior
It should build?

Additional Context
Add any other context about the problem here (screenshots, whether the bug only occurs only in certain
mobile/desktop/browser environments, etc.)

OS: macOS 12.1 (Intel)
yarn: 3.1.0
node: 17.3.1
npm: 8.3.0
commit: 89a9f21
terminal: iTerm2 3.4.14
user: no permission issues

[natebolam]

I ma having the exact same issue:
OS: macOS 12.2.1 (M1)
node: 16.14.0
npm: 8.5.3
commit: 89a9f219f21

[ashishmahawal]

hitting same issue
I ma having the exact same issue:
OS: macOS 12.2.1 (M1)
node: 16.14.0
npm: 8.5.3

[PaulRBerg]

Thanks everyone for reporting! Unfortunately I have never ever managed to reproduce this issue, even if I have very similar environments as you guys do.

Some help would be appreciated here. PRs welcome!

[kokokenada]

try touch yarn.lock as a work around yarnpkg/berry#625

[Praiz001]

I am having exact same error right now on Windows. Any fix yet ?

[adam-coster]

I just ran into this on AWS CodeBuild (for CI), so it was also on a fresh install of everything. I cannot replicate it locally.

EDIT: I was able to replicate it locally by deleting all node_modules folders, .yarn/cache, and .yarn/install-state.gz.

• Affected yarn v3.2.x and v3.3.1 (I had tried updating to resolve the issue, since that fixed it for someone else, to no avail).
• The error message was for my root project.json, whose folder was also the working directory.
• I got the error when I ran yarn node --version (which works locally for me)
• I got the error when I ran any package.json script. In my case, the command was yarn ci:install
• There was a yarn.lock file already, so that was not the problem.
• I listed the files in all parent directories, all the way to /, and there were no package.json, yarn.lock, or other node/npm/yarn-related files in any parent.

✅ I resolved the issue by directly running my commands, instead of doing it through a package.json script.

Previously I had something like:

    // ...
    "scripts": {
        "ci:install":  "yarn workspaces focus root @myScope/package1 @myScope/package2"
    }
    // ...

And I was running the command yarn ci:install on the server. This caused the error to be thrown. By directly running the command yarn workspaces focus root @myScope/package1 @myScope/package2 I was able to avoid the error.

[adam-coster]

To add onto my prior comment, I was able to confirm that the issue is:

When .yarn/install-state.gz is missing, yarn run ... fails and throws the error initially described in this issue.

This can be resolved by directly doing some sort of an install, without going through a package.json script. For example, yarn install for an entire repo or yarn workspaces focus ... for a subset of packages. Once any kind of install is directly run, the .yarn/install-state.gz file appears and future yarn run calls work as expected.

Note that the docs say that .yarn/install-state.gz should be gitignored, so this is presumably an unintended behavior.

My environment info:

• Ubuntu 20 (via WSL2 on Windows 11)
• Node 18.12.1
• yarn 3.3.1 (via corepack)
• Monorepo context

Relevant parts of my .yarnrc.yml:

nodeLinker: pnpm
plugins:
  - path: .yarn/plugins/@yarnpkg/plugin-version.cjs
    spec: '@yarnpkg/plugin-version'
  - path: .yarn/plugins/@yarnpkg/plugin-workspace-tools.cjs
    spec: '@yarnpkg/plugin-workspace-tools'