Node and NPM don't work properly on some LPARS?

We have a very frustrating, irritating and puzzling issue with node and npm on some of our LPARS. On some, both node and npm work as expected. On others it doesn't work at all. There does not seem to be any difference between the LPARS that do and do not work, but clearly there must be something amiss under the covers. We have reported it to IBM, who have released further updates for us to try (SI58114 - doesn't say what they are fixing or changing) but still no dice.

The problem is that we simply cannot install any packages globally. NPM barfs for anything we try. For example:

npm install jsdoc -g

returns
1 verbose cli [ '/usr/bin/node', '/usr/bin/npm', 'install', 'jsdoc', '-g' ]
2 info using npm@2.11.3
3 info using node@v0.12.7
27 verbose stack TypeError: uid must be an unsigned int
27 verbose stack at TypeError (native)
27 verbose stack at Object.fs.chown (fs.js:984:11)
27 verbose stack at /QOpenSys/QIBM/ProdData/Node/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/chownr/chownr.js:12:43
27 verbose stack at FSReqWrap.oncomplete (fs.js:95:15)


The ": uid must be an unsigned int " is persistent, regardless of package :(


Anyone else have this type of issue? IBM are able to provide us with anything useful to help.

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