ng update Angular 20 → 21 fails with “Invalid Version:”

[ppaternostro]

Command

update

Is this a regression?

• Yes, this behavior used to work in the previous version

The previous version in which this bug was not present was

Angular 20 CLI updater

Description

Running ng update @angular/core@21 @angular/cli@21 on an Angular 20 project fails immediately with:

The installed Angular CLI version is outdated.
Installing a temporary Angular CLI versioned 21.1.4 to perform the update.
Using package manager: npm
Collecting installed dependencies...
Found 42 dependencies.
An unhandled exception occurred: Invalid Version: 
See "/tmp/ng-ikfuQW/angular-errors.log" for further details.

Even using --migrate-only or npx @angular/cli@21 triggers the same error.

Direct npm installation of Angular 21 packages works, but the updater cannot run migrations.

Minimal Reproduction

1. Create an Angular 20 project (e.g., ng new test20 with CLI 20.x).
2. Optionally add Angular Material or ESLint packages (version 20).
3. Run: ng update @angular/core@21 @angular/cli@21
4. Observe the error: An unhandled exception occurred: Invalid Version:
   See "/tmp/ng-XXXXX/angular-errors.log" for further details.

Exception or Error

TypeError: Invalid Version: 
    at new SemVer (/tmp/angular-cli-packages-tDrRUS/node_modules/semver/classes/semver.js:40:13)
    at compare (/tmp/angular-cli-packages-tDrRUS/node_modules/semver/functions/compare.js:5:3)
    at Object.gte (/tmp/angular-cli-packages-tDrRUS/node_modules/semver/functions/gte.js:4:30)
    at shouldForcePackageManager (/tmp/angular-cli-packages-tDrRUS/node_modules/@angular/cli/src/commands/update/utilities/cli-version.js:187:20)
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:103:5)
    at async UpdateCommandModule.run (/tmp/angular-cli-packages-tDrRUS/node_modules/@angular/cli/src/commands/update/cli.js:210:34)
    at async UpdateCommandModule.handler (/tmp/angular-cli-packages-tDrRUS/node_modules/@angular/cli/src/command-builder/command-module.js:160:28)

Your Environment

- Angular CLI: 20.3.16
- Angular Core: 20.3.16
- Node: 20.20.0  
- NPM: 10.8.2  
- OS: Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS

Anything else relevant?

No response

[alan-agius4]

I am unable to reproduce with the steps provided.

ng update @angular/core@21 @angular/cli@21
The installed Angular CLI version is outdated.
Installing a temporary Angular CLI versioned 21.1.4 to perform the update.
Using package manager: npm
Collecting installed dependencies...
Found 22 dependencies.
Fetching dependency metadata from registry...
    Updating package.json with dependency @angular/build @ "21.1.4" (was "20.3.16")...
    Updating package.json with dependency @angular/cli @ "21.1.4" (was "20.3.16")...
    Updating package.json with dependency @angular/compiler-cli @ "21.1.5" (was "20.3.16")...
    Updating package.json with dependency typescript @ "5.9.3" (was "5.8.3")...
    Updating package.json with dependency @angular/common @ "21.1.5" (was "20.3.16")...
    Updating package.json with dependency @angular/compiler @ "21.1.5" (was "20.3.16")...
    Updating package.json with dependency @angular/core @ "21.1.5" (was "20.3.16")...
    Updating package.json with dependency @angular/forms @ "21.1.5" (was "20.3.16")...
    Updating package.json with dependency @angular/platform-browser @ "21.1.5" (was "20.3.16")...
    Updating package.json with dependency @angular/router @ "21.1.5" (was "20.3.16")...
UPDATE package.json (1203 bytes)
✔ Cleaning node modules directory
✔ Installing packages
** Executing migrations of package '@angular/cli' **

❯ Remove any karma configuration files that only contain the default content.
  The default configuration is automatically available without a specific project file.
  Migration completed (No changes made).

❯ Update 'moduleResolution' to 'bundler' in TypeScript configurations.
  You can read more about this, here: https://www.typescriptlang.org/tsconfig/#moduleResolution
  Migration completed (No changes made).

❯ Updates the 'lib' property in tsconfig files to use 'es2022' or a more modern version.
  Migration completed (No changes made).

** Optional migrations of package '@angular/cli' **

This package has 1 optional migration that can be executed.
Optional migrations may be skipped and executed after the update process, if preferred.

Select the migrations that you'd like to run
❯◉ [use-application-builder] Migrate application projects to the new build system. (https://angular.dev/tools/cli/build-system-migration)

↑↓ navigate • space select • a all • i invert • ⏎ submit

Can you setup a minimal repro please?

You can read here why this is needed. A good way to make a minimal repro is to create a new app via ng new repro-app and adding the minimum possible code to show the problem. Then you can push this repository to github and link it here.

This might be related to your directory structure so its really important to get an accurate repro to diagnose this.

[ppaternostro]

Thanks for the quick response. I migrated an Angular 16 project using incremental updates (i.e., 16->17, 17->18, etc.). I had no issues using that strategy until I migrated from 20->21. That's when the problem I reported manifested. I assumed it was an issue with the Angular 21 CLI updater and migrating from 20->21. Providing a minimal repro would be extremely time consuming as I would have to minimally recreate my Angular 16 project. The stack trace I provided appears to point to a invalid semver (seems to be blank on the stack trace). My package.json is not using invalid semvers anywhere but I realize any of the package dependencies could potentially be the issue. Did the logic change in the Angular 21 CLI updater as relates to semver checking? I should have been more explicit in my original post as to the migration path taken but as I mentioned, the earlier incremental updates executed without any issues. Thanks.

[alan-agius4]

Version 21 introduced several enhancements to package management and version handling. To proceed with our investigation, at the very minimum please provide the package.json that is causing the issue.

[ppaternostro]

{
  "name": "user-search",
  "version": "0.0.0",
  "scripts": {
    "ng": "ng",
    "start": "ng serve",
    "build": "ng build --prod",
    "test": "ng test",
    "lint": "ng lint",
    "e2e": "ng e2e"
  },
  "private": true,
  "dependencies": {
    "@angular/animations": "^20.3.16",
    "@angular/cdk": "^20.2.14",
    "@angular/cli": "^20.3.16",
    "@angular/common": "^20.3.16",
    "@angular/compiler": "^20.3.16",
    "@angular/core": "^20.3.16",
    "@angular/forms": "^20.3.16",
    "@angular/material": "^20.2.14",
    "@angular/platform-browser": "^20.3.16",
    "@angular/platform-browser-dynamic": "^20.3.16",
    "@angular/router": "^20.3.16",
    "core-js": "^3.48.0",
    "hammerjs": "^2.0.8",
    "ngx-bootstrap": "^21.0.1",
    "rxjs": "^7.8.2",
    "web-animations-js": "^2.3.2",
    "zone.js": "^0.16.0"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@angular-devkit/build-angular": "^20.3.16",
    "@angular/compiler-cli": "^20.3.16",
    "@angular/language-service": "^20.3.16",
    "@types/jasmine": "~6.0.0",
    "@types/jasminewd2": "~2.0.13",
    "@types/node": "~25.2.3",
    "@typescript-eslint/eslint-plugin": "8.55.0",
    "@typescript-eslint/parser": "8.55.0",
    "eslint": "^10.0.0",
    "eslint-config-prettier": "^10.1.8",
    "eslint-plugin-import": "2.32.0",
    "eslint-plugin-jsdoc": "62.5.4",
    "eslint-plugin-prefer-arrow": "1.2.3",
    "eslint-plugin-prettier": "^5.5.5",
    "jasmine-core": "~6.0.1",
    "jasmine-spec-reporter": "~7.0.0",
    "karma": "~6.4.4",
    "karma-chrome-launcher": "~3.2.0",
    "karma-coverage-istanbul-reporter": "^3.0.3",
    "karma-jasmine": "~5.1.0",
    "karma-jasmine-html-reporter": "^2.2.0",
    "prettier": "^3.8.1",
    "protractor": "^7.0.0",
    "ts-node": "~10.9.2",
    "typescript": "^5.9.3"
  }
}

[alan-agius4]

For some reason, the CLI can't figure out which NPM version you're using. We definitely need to issue a better error message for this, but I’m not yet sure why it’s failing to detect the version in your environment.

[ppaternostro]

Since I'm running Ubuntu, I use Snap to install node and npm. Running which node from the terminal yields /snap/bin/node and running which npm yields /snap/bin/npm. However, I have also tried removing the Snap versions and have installed and activated nvm to install node version 20 which installs version 20.20.0 specifically along with npm version 10.8.2. That setup also fails with the same error. Not sure if any of that information helps but figured I'd provide more context.

[alan-agius4]

Can you please provide the output of ng ––version and npm ––version?

[ppaternostro]

I have Angular installed globally.

ng version output

     _                      _                 ____ _     ___
    / \   _ __   __ _ _   _| | __ _ _ __     / ___| |   |_ _|
   / △ \ | '_ \ / _` | | | | |/ _` | '__|   | |   | |    | |
  / ___ \| | | | (_| | |_| | | (_| | |      | |___| |___ | |
 /_/   \_\_| |_|\__, |\__,_|_|\__,_|_|       \____|_____|___|
                |___/
    

Angular CLI       : 21.1.4
Node.js           : 20.20.0
Package Manager   : npm 
Operating System  : linux x64

npm -v output

10.8.2

[ppaternostro]

Output from running ng version from within the project folder

     _                      _                 ____ _     ___
    / \   _ __   __ _ _   _| | __ _ _ __     / ___| |   |_ _|
   / △ \ | '_ \ / _` | | | | |/ _` | '__|   | |   | |    | |
  / ___ \| | | | (_| | |_| | | (_| | |      | |___| |___ | |
 /_/   \_\_| |_|\__, |\__,_|_|\__,_|_|       \____|_____|___|
                |___/
    


Angular CLI: 20.3.16
Node: 20.20.0
Package Manager: npm 
OS: linux x64
    

Angular: 20.3.16
... animations, cli, common, compiler, compiler-cli, core, forms
... language-service, platform-browser, platform-browser-dynamic
... router

Package                         Version
---------------------------------------
@angular-devkit/architect       0.2003.16
@angular-devkit/build-angular   20.3.16
@angular-devkit/core            20.3.16
@angular-devkit/schematics      20.3.16
@angular/cdk                    20.2.14
@angular/material               20.2.14
@schematics/angular             20.3.16
rxjs                            7.8.2
typescript                      5.9.3
zone.js                         0.16.1