Unable to update individual vitest 4 dependencies

[doberkofler]

Describe the bug

I have just tried to update my vitest dependencies from 4.0.2 to 4.0.3 and got this npm error.
As a last resort for all problems npm related, i removed the package-lock.json file and the node_modules directory and was able to install but something seems fishy. Just removing the package-lock.json file does not remove the problem.

npm i
npm error code ERESOLVE
npm error ERESOLVE could not resolve
npm error
npm error While resolving: periscope@1.0.0
npm error Found: @vitest/browser-playwright@4.0.2
npm error node_modules/@vitest/browser-playwright
npm error   dev @vitest/browser-playwright@"4.0.3" from the root project
npm error   peerOptional @vitest/browser-playwright@"4.0.2" from vitest@4.0.2
npm error   node_modules/vitest
npm error     dev vitest@"4.0.3" from the root project
npm error     peer vitest@"4.0.2" from @vitest/browser@4.0.2
npm error     node_modules/@vitest/browser
npm error       @vitest/browser@"4.0.2" from @vitest/browser-playwright@4.0.2
npm error       1 more (@vitest/coverage-v8)
npm error     3 more (@vitest/browser-playwright, @vitest/coverage-v8, @vitest/eslint-plugin)
npm error
npm error Could not resolve dependency:
npm error dev @vitest/browser-playwright@"4.0.3" from the root project
npm error
npm error Conflicting peer dependency: vitest@4.0.3
npm error node_modules/vitest
npm error   peer vitest@"4.0.3" from @vitest/browser-playwright@4.0.3
npm error   node_modules/@vitest/browser-playwright
npm error     dev @vitest/browser-playwright@"4.0.3" from the root project
npm error
npm error Fix the upstream dependency conflict, or retry
npm error this command with --force or --legacy-peer-deps
npm error to accept an incorrect (and potentially broken) dependency resolution.
npm error
npm error
npm error For a full report see:
npm error /Users/doberkofler/.npm/_logs/2025-10-24T15_05_45_041Z-eresolve-report.txt

Reproduction

Assuming that the following packages are already installed, just upgrade from 4.0.2 to 4.0.3 and run npm i:

{
	"type": "module",
	"devDependencies": {
		"@vitest/browser-playwright": "4.0.2",
		"@vitest/coverage-v8": "4.0.2",
		"vitest": "4.0.2"
	}
}

System Info

System:
    OS: macOS 15.7.1
    CPU: (8) x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8559U CPU @ 2.70GHz
    Memory: 2.33 GB / 16.00 GB
    Shell: 5.9 - /bin/zsh
  Binaries:
    Node: 24.10.0 - /Users/doberkofler/.nvm/versions/node/v24.10.0/bin/node
    Yarn: 1.22.22 - /Users/doberkofler/.nvm/versions/node/v24.10.0/bin/yarn
    npm: 11.6.2 - /Users/doberkofler/.nvm/versions/node/v24.10.0/bin/npm
    pnpm: 9.5.0 - /Users/doberkofler/.nvm/versions/node/v24.10.0/bin/pnpm
    bun: 1.2.19 - /Users/doberkofler/.bun/bin/bun
    Watchman: 2025.10.20.00 - /usr/local/bin/watchman
  Browsers:
    Chrome: 141.0.7390.123
    Safari: 26.0.1
  npmPackages:
    @vitest/browser-playwright: 4.0.3 => 4.0.3 
    @vitest/coverage-v8: 4.0.3 => 4.0.3 
    @vitest/eslint-plugin: 1.3.23 => 1.3.23 
    vite: 7.1.12 => 7.1.12 
    vitest: 4.0.3 => 4.0.3

Used Package Manager

npm

Validations

• Follow our Code of Conduct
• Read the Contributing Guidelines.
• Read the docs.
• Check that there isn't already an issue that reports the same bug to avoid creating a duplicate.
• Check that this is a concrete bug. For Q&A open a GitHub Discussion or join our Discord Chat Server.
• The provided reproduction is a minimal reproducible example of the bug.

[sheremet-va]

I'm confused, what is this issue about? Vitest requires all versions of its dependencies to be the same, you can't have browser-playwright at 4.0.2, but Vitest at 4.0.3.

[doberkofler]

@sheremet-va I understand and was surprised myself, but I did actually change all tree dependencies and got this error message. I just tried again and was able to reproduce this. I understand that this might be a problem in npm itself but as I did not change the npm version my best guess is that is is related to the vitest package definition.

Initially:

npm outdated
Package                     Current  Wanted  Latest  Location                                 Depended by
@vitest/browser-playwright    4.0.2   4.0.2   4.0.3  node_modules/@vitest/browser-playwright  fe
@vitest/coverage-v8           4.0.2   4.0.2   4.0.3  node_modules/@vitest/coverage-v8         fe
vitest                        4.0.2   4.0.2   4.0.3  node_modules/vitest                      fe

After making the changes in the package.json file:

npm outdated
Package                     Current  Wanted  Latest  Location                                 Depended by
@vitest/browser-playwright    4.0.2   4.0.3   4.0.3  node_modules/@vitest/browser-playwright  fe
@vitest/coverage-v8           4.0.2   4.0.3   4.0.3  node_modules/@vitest/coverage-v8         fe
vitest                        4.0.2   4.0.3   4.0.3  node_modules/vitest                      fe
npm i
npm error code ERESOLVE
npm error ERESOLVE could not resolve
npm error
npm error While resolving: ttr@2.0.0
npm error Found: @vitest/browser-playwright@4.0.2
npm error node_modules/@vitest/browser-playwright
npm error   dev @vitest/browser-playwright@"4.0.3" from the root project
npm error   peerOptional @vitest/browser-playwright@"4.0.2" from vitest@4.0.2
npm error   node_modules/vitest
npm error     dev vitest@"4.0.3" from the root project
npm error     peer vitest@"4.0.2" from @vitest/browser@4.0.2
npm error     node_modules/@vitest/browser
npm error       @vitest/browser@"4.0.2" from @vitest/browser-playwright@4.0.2
npm error       1 more (@vitest/coverage-v8)
npm error     2 more (@vitest/browser-playwright, @vitest/coverage-v8)
npm error
npm error Could not resolve dependency:
npm error dev @vitest/browser-playwright@"4.0.3" from the root project
npm error
npm error Conflicting peer dependency: vitest@4.0.3
npm error node_modules/vitest
npm error   peer vitest@"4.0.3" from @vitest/browser-playwright@4.0.3
npm error   node_modules/@vitest/browser-playwright
npm error     dev @vitest/browser-playwright@"4.0.3" from the root project
npm error
npm error Fix the upstream dependency conflict, or retry
npm error this command with --force or --legacy-peer-deps
npm error to accept an incorrect (and potentially broken) dependency resolution.
npm error
npm error
npm error For a full report see:
npm error /Users/doberkofler/.npm/_logs/2025-10-24T17_40_42_755Z-eresolve-report.txt
npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: /Users/doberkofler/.npm/_logs/2025-10-24T17_40_42_755Z-debug-0.log

[sheremet-va]

Did you try again? So far, it seems like you are the only one having this, so I am going to move this to discussions