Hacktoberfest 2026: the issues maintainers tagged for October, open and beginner-friendly. Browse Hacktoberfest issues

[BUG] E401 error message does not use the configured registry

Open Beginner friendly
  • Is something wrong?
#10,014 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Maintainers usually reply within 1 day

@toufiq-dev is already working on this.

Since Sep 24, 2026.

  • #10034 by @toufiq-dev — open

Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
75/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
javascript, nodejs
Domain
cli, developer-experience

Research direction

The error message is generated in lib/utils/error-message.js at line 159. Start by examining that file to see how the registry URL is currently hardcoded. Check how npm retrieves the configured registry (likely from npm.config). Modify the error message to use the configured registry's root URL. Test by setting a custom registry in .npmrc and triggering a 401 error with an npm command like npm whoami or npm install without authentication.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Bug Priority 3
Is there an existing issue for this?
  • I have searched the existing issues
This issue exists in the latest npm version
  • I am using the latest npm
This is not just a request to bump a dependency for a CVE
  • This is not solely a request to bump a dependency for a CVE
Current Behavior

When npm has a 401 error, it constructs an error message that suggests recovering your password. But this error message has a hard-coded https://npmjs.org link, which is misleading when the authentication error occurred with a private npm registry, not the default npmjs.org registry.

Expected Behavior

The error message should display a link to the root of the custom registry if it is set, and fall back to the default https://npmjs.org/forgot. Note the custom registry likely won't be able to point to a /forgot subpage, but defaulting to the root of the custom registry would be more clear.

The reasoning for this request is that it is confusing for developers experiencing auth errors to see a link to the public npm registry when our team exclusively uses an internal mirror.

Steps To Reproduce
  1. Set up a .npmrc to point to an npm registry that requires authentication
  2. Make an npm install WITHOUT authenticating
  3. It should return a 401 with the error 
    npm error code E401
npm error Incorrect or missing password.
npm error If you were trying to login, change your password, create an authentication token or enable two-factor authentication then that means you likely typed your password in incorrectly.
npm error Please try again, or recover your password at:
npm error   https://www.npmjs.com/forgot
npm error
npm error If you were doing some other operation then your saved credentials are probably out of date.
npm error To correct this please try logging in again with:
npm error   npm login
npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: /home/kmurphy/.npm/_logs/2026-09-22T16_19_31_269Z-debug-0.log

The source code for the hard-coded error message is at:

https://github.com/npm/cli/blob/7b508113d98bf9ae5ef2582b8418014dd8869ec1/lib/utils/error-message.js#L159

Environment
  • npm: 12.0.1
  • Node.js: 26.10.0
  • OS Name: Ubuntu 24.04
  • System Model Name: all
  • npm config:
; "user" config from /home/kmurphy/.npmrc

; //artifactory.mydomain.com/artifactory/api/npm/my-npm-mirror/:_authToken = (protected) ; overridden by project

; "project" config from /home/kmurphy/dev/MyProject/MySubdir/.npmrc

//artifactory.mydomain.com/artifactory/api/npm/my-npm-mirror/:_authToken = (protected)
registry = "https://artifactory.mydomain.com/artifactory/api/npm/my-npm-mirror/"

; node bin location = /home/kmurphy/.nvm/versions/node/v26.10.0/bin/node
; node version = v26.10.0
; npm local prefix = /home/kmurphy/dev/MyProject/MySubdir
; npm version = 12.0.2
; cwd = /home/kmurphy/dev/MyProject/MySubdir
; HOME = /home/kmurphy
; Run `npm config ls -l` to show all defaults.
Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
10.2k
Forks
4.8k
Avg merge
3d 21h
Merged PRs (30d)
12

Getting set up

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from npm/cli

All issues in npm/cli

Similar issues

More JavaScript issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.