Node.js not linked error

I've literally searched everything on web. But I could not find the solution for the error node-0.8.8 already installed, it's just not linked. Is it related to a path file issue?

Execute this list of commands in this particular order:

sudo brew uninstall node
brew update
brew upgrade
brew cleanup
brew install node
sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(brew --prefix)
brew link --overwrite node
brew postinstall node

After you've run brew upgrade to update node to the latest version, run brew doctor to see what potential problems there are. It might tell you that node is unlinked, in which case, running brew link node will link it. (You might need to first run brew unlink node)

I got the same error today and it told me that Node was not properly linked and there were unexpected header files as well.

When I tried to reinstall node, It told me that it was already installed, just not linked.

Warning: /usr/local/include isn't writable

/usr/local/bin/node already exists. Remove it

##Solution

To fix this, I took ownership of it by using:

sudo chown -R `whoami` /usr/local/

Then I force linked all files by using:

brew link --overwrite node

After that I did the post install routine with:

brew postinstall node

Then I checked if node was properly installed with:

node -v

I received output v5.1.0 and It was fixed :). Hope this helps.

This may not be the perfect fix out there since I have started dabbling with node and homebrew just 10 minutes ago but it did the job for me.

Your old version of Node 0.5 was probably not installed with Homebrew (or Homebrew's script changed in the large gap between the 0.5 beta releases to the 0.8 stable releases (the 0.6 and 0.7 releases in-between).

Both Homebrew and the official Node installer try to install to /usr/local/bin so I'd recommend starting by simply deleting /usr/local/bin/node, /usr/local/bin/npm, and /usr/local/lib/node and try again.

hardcorepunk's answer worked. However, we can no longer chown /usr/local in High Sierra. So, execute the commands in this order:

sudo brew uninstall node
brew update
brew upgrade
brew cleanup
brew install node
sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(brew --prefix)/*
brew link --overwrite node
brew postinstall node

To link the node, run following command:

brew link homebrew/versions/node<version no>

And to check whether it is properly installed or not, run:

node -v

If node will get properly linked, it will not through any error, and will print node version. You can read nice explanation about it from here.

For line did the job:

brew link --overwrite node

It forces the link and overwrite all conflicting files:

You can change the permission of the file "/usr/local/bin/node", like "chmod +w /usr/local/bin/node", to make it writable.