NPM and Ionic failed to run - EACCES and EISDIR error

You create new project using ionic framework. And suddently it says that there are new update either ionic update or npm update. You run the npm -i g ionic or npm -i g npm.. and your nightmare starts. You have

WARN tar EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, open '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/.staging/@ionic/discover-b2d9d3b9/dist'

WARN tar EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, open '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/.staging/readable-stream-4416b49f/lib'

WARN tar EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, open '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/.staging/diff-4b455008/lib/util'

WARN tar EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, open '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/.staging/source-map-848434cb/lib'

WARN tar EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, open '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/.staging/string_decoder-e05a13c4/lib'

WARN tar EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, open '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/.staging/source-map-848434cb/dist'

WARN tar EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, open '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/.staging/rxjs-db639a40/_esm2015/internal-compatibility'

and EACCES error popping out.

Then suddenly your ionic serve command failed.

Definitely you will try to:

• Remove the installation
• Reinstall ionic or npm
• Clean the cache
• and so on...

with or without administration privileges (sudo).

AND still you can't run the ionic serve command.

Be cool, I've spent few hours too to figure out that problem. And finally, I found the most reliable method.

Below is the steps taken directly from https://docs.npmjs.com/resolving-eacces-permissions-errors-when-installing-packages-globally

1. Back up your computer.
2. On the command line, in your home directory, create a directory for global installations:

    mkdir ~/.npm-global
   

3. Configure npm to use the new directory path:

    npm config set prefix '~/.npm-global'
   

4. In your preferred text editor, open or create a ~/.profile file and add this line:

    export PATH=~/.npm-global/bin:$PATH
   

5. On the command line, update your system variables:

    source ~/.profile
   

6. To test your new configuration, install a package globally without using sudo:

    npm install -g jshint
   

Instead of steps 2-4, you can use the corresponding ENV variable (e.g. if you don’t want to modify ~/.profile):

    NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX=~/.npm-global

and you shall be able to run your ionic serve command again.