Endless Loop: Cannot find 'cross-spawn'

Problem

I am stuck in a loop where running npm run watch says it cannot find cross-spawn.

> @ watch /Users/donnie/Github/laravel_project
> npm run development -- --watch


> @ development /Users/donnie/Github/laravel_project
> cross-env NODE_ENV=development node_modules/webpack/bin/webpack.js --progress --hide-modules --config=node_modules/laravel-mix/setup/webpack.config.js "--watch"

module.js:549
    throw err;
    ^

Error: Cannot find module 'cross-spawn'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:547:15)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:474:25)
    at Module.require (module.js:596:17)
    at require (internal/module.js:11:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/donnie/.yarn-cache/npm-cross-env-5.2.0/dist/index.js:5:19)
    at Module._compile (module.js:652:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:663:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:565:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:505:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:497:3)
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! @ development: `cross-env NODE_ENV=development node_modules/webpack/bin/webpack.js --progress --hide-modules --config=node_modules/laravel-mix/setup/webpack.config.js "--watch"`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the @ development 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/donnie/.npm/_logs/2019-01-22T21_57_39_199Z-debug.log
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! @ watch: `npm run development -- --watch`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the @ watch 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/donnie/.npm/_logs/2019-01-22T21_57_39_227Z-debug.log

I run npm i --D cross-spawn which is successful, then npm run watch again. It says there are a few more dependencies that must be installed (which is strange because the first thing I did was npm install.) Anyway, it finally provides this feedback:

Okay, done. The following packages have been installed and saved to your package.json dependencies list:

- vue-template-compiler
- sass-loader@7.*
- sass
- resolve-url-loader@2.3.1

Finished. Please run Mix again.

Cool. So I run npm run watch again and we're right back to the cross-spawn problem.

I've tried deleting /node_modules and starting fresh. No luck.

🤔

package.json

{
  "devDependencies": {
    "axios": "^0.18",
    "bootstrap": "^4.0.0",
    "cross-env": "^5.1",
    "cross-spawn": "^6.0.5"
    "false": "^0.0.4",
    "jquery": "^3.2",
    "laravel-mix": "^4.0.7",
    "lodash": "^4.17.5",
    "popper.js": "^1.12",
    "resolve-url-loader": "2.3.1",
    "sass": "^1.16.1",
    "sass-loader": "7.*",
    "vue": "^2.5.17",
    "vue-template-compiler": "^2.5.22"
  },
  "dependencies": {}
}

Environment

npm: 6.3.0
laravel: 5.7

Solution

Running npm rebuild then npm install should fix the problem. Now, running npm run dev should build fine.

I believe this issue has something to do with bad file permissions and npm rebuild seems to sort things out.