Node stopped working, reinstall no luck

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1

Hi, my node install stopped working, so I tried to upgrade and reinstall everything, but errors keep coming. I searched the forum for possible solutions and tried one or two, but now I am stuck.

log:

pilat@FIREBAT MINGW64 ~/photostructure-for-servers (beta)
$ ./start.sh
(node:14152) [DEP0190] DeprecationWarning: Passing args to a child process with shell option true can lead to security vulnerabilities, as the arguments are not escaped, only concatenated.
(Use node --trace-deprecation ... to show where the warning was created)
node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1458
throw err;
^

Error: Cannot find module ‘commander’
Require stack:

  • C:\Users\pilat\photostructure-for-servers\bin\photostructure.js
    at Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1455:15)
    at defaultResolveImpl (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1065:19)
    at resolveForCJSWithHooks (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1070:22)
    at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1241:25)
    at wrapModuleLoad (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:255:19)
    at Module.require (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1555:12)
    at require (node:internal/modules/helpers:190:16)
    at 6858 (C:\Users\pilat\photostructure-for-servers\bin\photostructure.js:9:90622)
    at n (C:\Users\pilat\photostructure-for-servers\bin\photostructure.js:9:90981)
    at 92636 (C:\Users\pilat\photostructure-for-servers\bin\photostructure.js:9:89344) {
    code: ‘MODULE_NOT_FOUND’,
    requireStack: [
    ‘C:\Users\pilat\photostructure-for-servers\bin\photostructure.js’
    ]
    }

Node.js v25.7.0

pilat@FIREBAT MINGW64 ~/photostructure-for-servers (beta)
$

$ node -v
v25.7.0

$ npm -v
11.11.0

I think I need a hint what to do next to get my server up and running again.

2

Howdy @pilatus – apologies for that glitch.

The current v2026.2.0-beta build was only tested on Linux: Ubuntu 22, 24, Debian bookworm, Alpine, and Docker.

Since that release I’ve been focussed on debugging PhotoStructure on my macOS 26 and Windows 11 test rigs–there were several hundred failing tests on both OSes, and a lot of adjustments needed to be made to accommodate new OS tooling, behaviors and APIs (who knew Windows marked all drives as hidden by default?)

I will ship these improvements in the next release which I hope to have out soon.

3

Hi mrm, thanks for the quick response. I will keep an eye open for that release then :smirking_face:

4

Hi @pilatus — thanks for the detailed report, and sorry for the hassle.

My running hypothesis is that you ran into a bootstrap bug, not anything wrong with your setup. PhotoStructure remembers which version was last installed in a small file at %APPDATA%\PhotoStructure\prior-version.json. That file lives outside the project directory on purpose (so it survives upgrades), but it caused a nasty failure mode: if node_modules ever goes missing — deleted by antivirus, cleaned up during a reinstall, or lost when you re-download the project — but the prior-version.json still shows the current version, bootstrap concludes “already up to date” and skips npm install. The next step tries to load commander from a node_modules that isn’t there, and you get the crash you saw.

I’ve fixed the bootstrap to also check for node_modules/ before deciding whether it can skip the install, so this recovers automatically. It’ll go out in the next beta release.

In the meantime, one of these should unstick you today:

  • Run ./start.sh --reinstall (the --reinstall flag forces a clean dependency install), or
  • Delete %APPDATA%\PhotoStructure\prior-version.json and run ./start.sh again.

Either one will trigger a fresh npm install and you should be back up and running. Let me know if it doesn’t, and thanks again for flagging this — it’ll save the next person the same headache.