Fails to create new app.

[rbiggs]

Is this a bug report?

Yes

Did you try recovering your dependencies?

(Write your answer here.)

Which terms did you search for in User Guide?

(Write your answer here if relevant.)

Environment

$: npx create-react-app --info
npx: installed 67 in 5.917s

Environment:
  OS:  macOS High Sierra 10.13.4
  Node:  8.11.1
  Yarn:  1.6.0
  npm:  6.0.0
  Watchman:  Not Found
  Xcode:  Xcode 9.3 Build version 9E145
  Android Studio:  Not Found

ERROR: package.json not found!

Steps to Reproduce

(Write your steps here:)

1. I installed react-create-app as follows:

npm i -g create-react-app

2. After installation was complete I tried to create a new React project with:

react-create-app my-app

3. This fails with the following error:

$: create-react-app my-app

Creating a new React app in /Users/rbiggs/Desktop/my-app.

Installing packages. This might take a couple of minutes.
Installing react, react-dom, and react-scripts...

events.js:183
      throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
      ^

Error: spawn yarnpkg ENOENT
    at _errnoException (util.js:1022:11)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:190:19)
    at onErrorNT (internal/child_process.js:372:16)
    at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:138:11)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:180:9)

Expected Behavior

(Write what you thought would happen.)

Actual Behavior

When I create a new React app, it creates the folder and a partial package.json file as illustrated below:

{
  "name": "my-app",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "private": true
}

Reproducible Demo

(Paste the link to an example project and exact instructions to reproduce the issue.)

[farhanaslam5151]

In step 2 you are creating project please write this command
Create-react-app my-app
Hope it will work fine.

[rbiggs]

My bad. I was in fact running create-react-app my-app, which does not work. Here's the console error:

$: create-react-app my-app

Creating a new React app in /Users/rbiggs/Desktop/my-app.

Installing packages. This might take a couple of minutes.
Installing react, react-dom, and react-scripts...

events.js:183
      throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
      ^

Error: spawn yarnpkg ENOENT
    at _errnoException (util.js:1022:11)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:190:19)
    at onErrorNT (internal/child_process.js:372:16)
    at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:138:11)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:180:9)

[farhanaslam5151]

Try upgrading node, then npm uninstall - g create-react-app and then use npx like
Npx create-react-app my-app

[farhanaslam5151]

If still not working then try this
npx -p create-react-app -c 'create-react-app myapp'
Hope it will work for you.

[rbiggs]

I tried that and got this:

$: npx -p create-react-app -c 'create-react-app myapp'
npx: installed 67 in 6.087s

Creating a new React app in /Users/rbiggs/Desktop/myapp.

Installing packages. This might take a couple of minutes.
Installing react, react-dom, and react-scripts...

events.js:183
      throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event
      ^

Error: spawn yarnpkg ENOENT
    at _errnoException (util.js:1022:11)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:190:19)
    at onErrorNT (internal/child_process.js:372:16)
    at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:138:11)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:180:9)

[bondz]

Try npx -p create-react-app -c 'create-react-app myapp --use-npm'

[rbiggs]

Surprisingly, that did work. But why? Something is definitely not right if the documented command is not working and this convoluted approach does.

[iansu]

It looks like your yarn installation is broken in some way. If you have yarn installed it will be used by default, which is what happened with the first command. The second command explicitly uses npm instead of yarn.

[rbiggs]

So, how do you install create-react-app with yarn? The README doesn't even have anything about how to install it. I looked at it on npm, didn't have any install instructions so I assumed I was supposed to do a normal npm i -g create-react-app to install it. You need to update the README with install instructions.

[iansu]

Yarn is automatically used if it's present on your system. So the first set of commands you tried as well as npx create-react-app my-app both used yarn. The command that did work for you used npm because of the --use-npm flag which is documented.

[rbiggs]

I do not find --use-npm anywhere in the documentation--README or user guide.

[iansu]

My bad. I thought it was in the user guide. It is in the help for the create-react-app command: create-react-app --help. I guess that's what I was thinking of. Feel free to send a PR if you'd like to add it to the user guide.

[rbiggs]

I don't think I'm the person to try to explain this. It was a bit over my head and convoluted.

[Timer]

Closing this as it seems resolved, but a re-install or an upgrade of your Yarn installation should fix this for the future (or uninstall it if you don't use it).

[rbiggs]

Why is this a Yarn only package? That wasn't clear in the documentation, and it is available on NPM to install. Yet you need Yarn for it to work? I'd prefer a normal npm package like everything else I use. If it doesn't work with NPM, then you should take it off NPM so no confusion. Is there an alternative to this that doesn't require Yarn???

[Timer]

This is not a Yarn only package. If you remove Yarn from your system, npm will be used by default.

If you want to keep Yarn installed on your system but not update it, you'll have to use a special command as posted above: npx -p create-react-app -c 'create-react-app myapp --use-npm'.

[rbiggs]

Thanks for the update. Actually, I never had Yarn installed on my system. But it didn't work with just NPM.