npm update removes other npm packages

[skyegecko]

Using npm version 7.5.3, when running npm update -g <package> any package not specified is instead removed from the global installation. On npm version 6.14.11, the command instead seems to do nothing.

I don't think this is a bug with lspupdate specifically, as from reading online it seems that using npm update -g can produce surprising results generally.

However, would it not be safer to use npm install -g instead? This will still update the package if it is out of date, and seems to behave more as I would expect.

[alexaandru]

Thank you very much for the report, wow, I was completely unaware that updating some package in particular would remove others. That is soooo weird :)

I'll dig into this and sure, will use whatever makes more sense.

Relevant issues:

• npm update removes package npm/npm#19407
• NPM 5 keeps removing packages. npm/npm#17165
• [BUG] NPM UPDATE removes dependencies npm/cli#2322

[alexaandru]

Yup, I can reproduce the issue and yes, install seems to work and seems to handle updates as well :) Wonderful, so update does installs and removes, installs does updates and installs but not removes, and removes probably does installs.. or something :D It's all clear now :) Way to go npm, keep it up!

I updated the config accordingly, thank you once again for the bug report :) Cheers!

[jnpatrick99]

This is really crazy to see after 6-7 years npm still randomly removes packages! So many threads on stackoverflow, here - and this never gets fixed.

Is there a way to add some kind of a command line argument to prevent npm from doing it?