UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE after `apt install npm`

I'm actually attempting to install gTile, which requires Bazelisk.

On a relatively clean system:

$ sudo apt install npm
# takes almost 5 minutes, then:
$ npm install -g @bazel/bazelisk
npm ERR! code UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE
npm ERR! errno UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE
npm ERR! request to failed, reason: unable to verify the first certificate
npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR! /home/celiyah/.npm/_logs/2021-05-17T16_21_40_542Z-debug.log

Based on this SO answer I also tried:

$ npm install ssl-root-cas
npm ERR! code UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE
npm ERR! errno UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE
npm ERR! request to failed, reason: unable to verify the first certificate
npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR! /home/celiyah/.npm/_logs/2021-05-17T16_23_34_826Z-debug.log

It would appear the npm install on Ubuntu is broken?

$ npm --version
6.14.8

Has anyone run into this error, and how does one fix it (without disabling security)?

On that note please don't mention turning SSL off. This is a secure machine and I'd like to keep it that way. :-)

1 Answer

The error disappears after reboot; after you sudo apt install npm, reboot the computer.