[BUG] Running 'npm update -g' does nothing, running 'npm -g update' works

[johnkennedy9147]

Attempting to update all globally installed packages.

npm outdated shows:

Package	Current	Wanted	Latest	Location
eslint	5.16.0	5.16.0	6.8.0	global
gatsby-cli	2.8.21	2.8.28	2.8.28	global
lighthouse	4.3.0	4.3.1	5.6.0	global
prettier	1.18.2	1.19.1	1.19.1	global
rimraf	2.6.3	2.7.1	3.0.1	global
yarn	1.15.2	1.21.1	1.21.1	global

Current Behavior

The example given in docs doesn't work
npm update -g
No action take by npm.
No console output shown

However, putting the global flag up front works.
npm -g update
globally installed packages successfully updated.

npm outdated now shows

Package	Current	Wanted	Latest	Location
eslint	5.16.0	5.16.0	6.8.0	global
lighthouse	4.3.1	4.3.1	5.6.0	global

npm list -g --depth=0
returns

+-- eslint@5.16.0
+-- gatsby-cli@2.8.28
+-- jasmine@3.5.0
+-- lighthouse@4.3.1
+-- npm@6.13.7
+-- openfin-cli@2.0.12
+-- prettier@1.19.1
`-- yarn@1.21.1

Failing command behaved same on V6.4.1 and V6.13.7

Successful command only tried on 6.13.7.

I'll raise a seperate bug report for versions not all having gone to latest.

[johnkennedy9147]

Closing this as its seems to have been caused by some issue with the installation of rimraf.

I had other issues with rimraf, including:
I noticed rimraf wasn't showing up when running npm list -g --depth=0
I was getting command not found when trying to run it.

No idea what the underlying problem was or why calling the update command differently worked, probably was just coincidence I likely did something between the two runs that fixed it without realising.

Everything working as expected now.