create-react-app npm start Error: Cannot find module '@webassemblyjs/ast'

Question

I am just starting to learn react and I'm following the first part of this tutorial. https://www.codecademy.com/articles/how-to-create-a-react-app

I have run the following commands in Terminal:

npm install -g create-react-app
create-react-app ravenous
# I've also tried npx create-react-app ravenous as per the official React website)
# Both timesI receive a successful output that ends with 'Happy hacking'
cd ravenous
npm start

But I receive the following error in the terminal.

npm start

> [email protected] start /Users/sarah/sites/ravenous
> react-scripts start

module.js:559
    throw err;
    ^

Error: Cannot find module '@webassemblyjs/ast'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:557:15)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:484:25)
    at Module.require (module.js:606:17)
    at require (internal/module.js:11:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/sarah/sites/ravenous/node_modules/webpack/lib/wasm/WebAssemblyParser.js:7:11)
    at Module._compile (module.js:662:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:673:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:575:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:515:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:507:3)
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! [email protected] start: `react-scripts start`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] start script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /Users/sarah/.npm/_logs/2018-10-16T17_12_05_840Z-debug.log

In node_modules I do have the @webassemblyjs/ast folder. The debug.log has this:

0 info it worked if it ends with ok
1 verbose cli [ '/usr/local/bin/node', '/usr/local/bin/npm', 'start' ]
2 info using [email protected]
3 info using [email protected]
4 verbose run-script [ 'prestart', 'start', 'poststart' ]
5 info lifecycle [email protected]~prestart: [email protected]
6 info lifecycle [email protected]~start: [email protected]
7 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~start: unsafe-perm in lifecycle true
8 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~start: PATH: /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/node-gyp-bin:/Users/s$
9 verbose lifecycle [email protected]~start: CWD: /Users/sarah/sites/ravenous
10 silly lifecycle [email protected]~start: Args: [ '-c', 'react-scripts start' ]
11 silly lifecycle [email protected]~start: Returned: code: 1  signal: null
12 info lifecycle [email protected]~start: Failed to exec start script
13 verbose stack Error: [email protected] start: `react-scripts start`
13 verbose stack Exit status 1
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/index.js:285:16)
13 verbose stack     at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:127:13)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/lib/spawn.js:55:14)
13 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:127:13)
13 verbose stack     at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:933:16)
13 verbose stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:220:5)
14 verbose pkgid [email protected]
15 verbose cwd /Users/sarah/sites/ravenous
16 verbose Darwin 16.7.0
17 verbose argv "/usr/local/bin/node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "start"
18 verbose node v9.6.1
19 verbose npm  v5.6.0
20 error code ELIFECYCLE
21 error errno 1
22 error [email protected] start: `react-scripts start`
22 error Exit status 1
23 error Failed at the [email protected] start script.
23 error This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
24 verbose exit [ 1, true ]

Here is my ravenous/package.json

{
"name": "ravenous",
"version": "0.1.0",
"private": true,
"dependencies": {
  "react": "^16.5.2",
  "react-dom": "^16.5.2",
  "react-scripts": "2.0.5"
},
"scripts": {
  "start": "react-scripts start",
  "build": "react-scripts build",
  "test": "react-scripts test",
  "eject": "react-scripts eject"
},
"eslintConfig": {
  "extends": "react-app"
},
"browserslist": [
  ">0.2%",
  "not dead",
  "not ie <= 11",
  "not op_mini all"
]
}

I've checked the folder permissions on the filesystem once the ravenous folder is created, set everything to Read & Write and then retried npm start but this doesn't seem to make a difference.

I've tried deleting package-lock.json and node_modules and rerunning npm install. It doesn't help the issue although strangely package-lock.json is not recreated when I do this.

I am on Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6

npm -v gives me 5.6.0

node -v gives me 9.6.1

Answer 1

I downloaded the "recommended for most users" release of Node.js (currently 8.12.0 LTS) and reinstalled node.

I'm now on node 8.12.0 and npm 6.4.1 and npm start is now working.