Why is npm giving 500 and 503 errors: "registry error parsing json"?

Question

Trying to do npm install steroids -g and running into lots of errors of two types:

First: 500

npm ERR! registry error parsing json
npm http 500 https://registry.npmjs.org/cardinal
npm ERR! registry error parsing json
npm http 500 https://registry.npmjs.org/glob
npm ERR! registry error parsing json
npm http 500 https://registry.npmjs.org/chmodr
npm ERR! registry error parsing json
npm http 500 https://registry.npmjs.org/fstream
npm ERR! registry error parsing json

when I visit those urls in the browser I get the following message:

Internal routing error

Sorry, we cannot connect to the intended server.

We have just been notified of this problem. We will correct it as soon as possible.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions: [email protected]

Second: 503

npm http 503 https://registry.npmjs.org/forever-agent
npm ERR! registry error parsing json
npm http 503 https://registry.npmjs.org/cheerio
npm ERR! registry error parsing json
npm http 503 https://registry.npmjs.org/request
npm ERR! registry error parsing json
npm http 503 https://registry.npmjs.org/diff
npm ERR! registry error parsing json
npm http 503 https://registry.npmjs.org/tar

When I visit those urls in the browser I get this message:

Error 503 backend read error

backend read error

Guru Meditation:

XID: 1448084160

Varnish cache server

Does this mean the npm registry is down? or do I have strange behavior on my machine?

Running node v.0.10.24 & npm v.1.3.21

Answer 1

Try using a mirror for example the european mirror:

npm --registry http://registry.npmjs.eu/ install karma