Composer loading from cache

Question

I ran into a problem using composer for installing/uninstalling some dependencies in laravel, which come back after deleting them from composer.json and deleting their vendor folder.

I initially used dflydev's markdown package, but now I want to change it to michelf's php-markdown, but I can't uninstall the old one since it comes back loaded from cache. I checked at AppData\Roaming\Composer and it is empty.

Any clue as to why this is happening?

  - Installing dflydev/markdown (dev-master dee1f7a)
    Loading from cache

Have you tried anything to resolve this problem? If yes, please share your attempts — Nico Haase, Apr 24 '20 at 08:58
I tried adding --no-cache option to my composer command and it downloaded the dependencies without loading them from cache.... — T.melz, Oct 29 '20 at 19:56

score 194 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 29 '22 at 20:23

194

You can use the following command to clear the cache irrespective of the OS you are on:

php composer.phar clear-cache

or if composer is installed globally

composer clear-cache

edited Mar 29 '22 at 20:23

Muhammad Dyas Yaskur

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answered Dec 14 '16 at 11:10

Atish Goswami

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Unless I deleted my `composer.lock` file, the `clear-cache` commands had no effect. – Daniel W. Apr 25 '19 at 16:04
Remember that it must be executed with root(super user). – Amirhf Mar 26 '20 at 18:56
1

Please add some further explanation to your answer. How does clearing the cache of downloaded files help to install or not install any pacakge? – Nico Haase Apr 24 '20 at 08:59

score 50 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 24 '20 at 15:07

50

I think, you can run your composer commands with --no-cache option flag like

composer install --no-cache

Or

composer require <package-name> --no-cache

Or

composer update [<package-name>] --no-cache

answered Aug 24 '20 at 15:07

Syed Abidur Rahman

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monsur.hoq · Answer 3 · 2019-05-02T07:13:23.847

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If you want to clear all packages cache, please try following:

$ composer clearcache

~~Or to just clear one or a few packages:~~

$ composer clearcache packagename1 packagename2 ...

You can also use clear-cache which is an alias for clearcache.

Source : https://blog.liplex.de/clear-composer-cache/

edited May 02 '19 at 07:13

answered Sep 30 '17 at 12:47

monsur.hoq

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It's not possible anymore to clear cache for specific packages. There is a comment in the post you've referenced and the post itself was updated. – geiger Jul 13 '18 at 19:44
Please add some further explanation to your answer. How does clearing the cache of downloaded files help to install or not install any pacakge? – Nico Haase Apr 24 '20 at 08:58

score 18 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 16 '23 at 11:41

18

composer caches packages under vendor/packagename convention. So you shouldn't run into any issue, just because the packagename is used in another vendor's package.

the cache locations are:

Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Composer\files\vendor\packagename
Linux: ~/.composer/cache/files/vendor/packagename
macOS: ~/Library/Caches/composer/files/packagename

edited Apr 16 '23 at 11:41

Boschman

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answered Mar 27 '14 at 22:48

Simon Wicki

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under windows its %LOCALAPPDATA%\Roaming\Composer and its as i said empty, and the package in question isn't used in any dependency as a i just installed it recently. – Tarik Mar 27 '14 at 23:13
Please add some further explanation to your answer. How does clearing the cache of downloaded files help to install or not install any pacakge? – Nico Haase Apr 24 '20 at 08:59
1

UPDATE 2022: for OSX: ~/Library/Caches/composer/ – Nikolay Shabak Jan 07 '22 at 15:14
This will work on any platform and give you the exact location: `composer config cache-dir` – datashaman May 19 '22 at 11:18

score 10 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 24 '20 at 04:50

10

Don't edit your composer.json file manually to remove a package - it will remain in composer.lock.

Use composer remove to delete the old package then composer require to install the replacement.

answered Apr 24 '20 at 04:50

Darvanen

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This looks like the first attempt to really solve the problem - thanks for your answer! – Nico Haase Apr 24 '20 at 09:00
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Yeah... We should probably change the question title, it's a bit misleading – Darvanen Apr 25 '20 at 10:23
This doesn't work if the package has been installed via dependency. There are reasons why you might need to manually edit composer.json ie if you want to update a reference to use a local path for a package. – Matt Clegg May 01 '20 at 08:17
> This doesn't work if the package has been installed via dependency. Correct. But the OP states directly that they are deleting the items from `composer.json` and they are magically returning > There are reasons why you might need to manually edit composer.json Absolutely. Again, not applicable in this context, where the OP is trying to remove a whole package. I *could* have said "run `composer update` after deleting the value" but that comes with *so* much more required knowledge. – Darvanen May 05 '20 at 01:24

Mostafa Barmshory · Answer 6 · 2017-02-19T21:00:13.893

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In some cases (for example OpenSuse 42.1) all user cache are puts in:

~/.cache/

For the composer, the same as other applications, the cache path is:

~/.cache/composer/

So, just remove this folder as follow:

rm -fR ~/.cache/composer

edited Feb 19 '17 at 21:00

answered Feb 19 '17 at 20:50

Mostafa Barmshory

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Please add some further explanation to your answer. How does clearing the cache of downloaded files help to install or not install any pacakge? – Nico Haase Apr 24 '20 at 08:59

score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 08 '16 at 09:03

3

run the following command

rm -rf ~/.composer/cache*

if Permission denied add sudo

answered Nov 08 '16 at 09:03

Sir Mbuki

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If some one is having permissions issues in their own home directory, "add sudo" to a `rm -rf` command that includes a wildcard is not a good idea. – Thoughtful Dragon Apr 22 '20 at 16:07
Please add some further explanation to your answer. How does clearing the cache of downloaded files help to install or not install any pacakge? – Nico Haase Apr 24 '20 at 08:59

score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 28 '20 at 14:46

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On Window, I see the composer cache file located in
C:\Users\{your_user}\AppData\Local\Composer\files

It stores ZIP files. The below image has 2 Zip files because I have downloaded 2 versions of monolog (1.0.1 and 1.0.2)

To remove the cache, simply delete the Zip file or folder.

answered Apr 28 '20 at 14:46

Linh

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This will work on any platform and give you the exact location: `composer config cache-dir` – datashaman May 19 '22 at 11:19

score -1 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 08 '20 at 16:33

So the only thing that worked for me on my Macbook was removing the package from my composer.json, deleting my composer.lock, running composer update, then adding the package back to composer.json, deleting my composer.lock(again), and running composer update (again). I had a local package in my instance of Laravel Nova that I changed to all lowercase from CamelCase and no matter what I did, it kept adding the package with the old CamelCase name. Didn't matter if I cleared caches or anything.

Composer loading from cache

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