vercel/turborepo · error · ConvertError

error_removing_node_modules

error_removing_node_modules

Error message

Failed to remove node_modules

What it means

During bun removal (a step of converting away from bun), all root and workspace node_modules directories are deleted with fs.rm(dir, { recursive: true, force: true }). Any rejection is rethrown as ConvertError type error_removing_node_modules; the underlying errno (EBUSY/EPERM on Windows, EACCES on Unix) is discarded by the wrapper.

Source

Thrown at packages/turbo-workspaces/src/managers/bun.ts:216

  });

  if (!options?.dry) {
    fs.writeJSONSync(project.paths.packageJson, packageJson, { spaces: 2 });

    // collect all workspace node_modules directories
    const allModulesDirs = [
      project.paths.nodeModules,
      ...project.workspaceData.workspaces.map((w) => w.paths.nodeModules)
    ];
    try {
      logger.subStep(`removing "node_modules"`);
      await Promise.all(
        allModulesDirs.map((dir) =>
          fs.rm(dir, { recursive: true, force: true })
        )
      );
    } catch (err) {
      throw new ConvertError("Failed to remove node_modules", {
        type: "error_removing_node_modules"
      });
    }
  }
}

/**
 * Clean is called post install, and is used to clean up any files
 * from this package manager that were needed for install,
 * but not required after migration
 */
// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/require-await -- must match the clean type signature
async function clean(args: CleanArgs): Promise<void> {
  const { project, logger, options } = args;

  logger.subStep(
    `removing ${path.relative(project.paths.root, project.paths.lockfile)}`
  );

View on GitHub (pinned to 9f94a7d215)

Solutions

1. Stop dev servers, editors, and watchers, then re-run the conversion
2. Remove leftovers manually: rm -rf node_modules and each workspace's node_modules listed in project.workspaceData, then retry
3. Fix ownership/permissions (chown -R $(whoami) node_modules) if another user/container created them
4. On Windows, wait a few seconds for handles to be released and retry

import { access, constants } from "node:fs/promises";

async function isRemovable(dir: string): Promise<boolean> {
  try {
    await access(dir, constants.W_OK);
    return true;
  } catch {
    return false;
  }
}

for (const dir of [project.paths.nodeModules, ...project.workspaceData.workspaces.map((w) => w.paths.nodeModules)]) {
  if (!(await isRemovable(dir))) console.warn(`Not removable: ${dir}`);
}

function isNodeModulesRemovalError(e: unknown): boolean {
  return e instanceof ConvertError && e.type === "error_removing_node_modules";
}

try {
  await convertProject({ project, convertTo, logger });
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof ConvertError && e.type === "error_removing_node_modules") {
    // kill dev servers/editors, then finish cleanup manually:
    // rm -rf node_modules <each workspace>/node_modules
    // and re-run with options.skipInstall if the conversion already wrote its files
  } else throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: fs.rm failing on any node_modules path: files locked by a running dev server, editor, or antivirus (Windows EBUSY/EPERM); directories owned by another user (root-created node_modules from Docker); a concurrent install touching the same tree.

Common situations: Converting while `next dev`/VS Code's TS server holds files open; converting in WSL against /mnt/c where file locks behave badly; node_modules created by root in CI then manipulated as a normal user.

Related errors

• Unable to write .gitignore
• Unable to write package.json
• Unable to update README.md
• package_manager-unexpected
• bun-workspace_glob_error

AI-assisted analysis of vercel/turborepo@9f94a7d215 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/59381cba5d48eea6. Report an issue: GitHub.