ng update does not work.

[parapada73]

Command

update

Is this a regression?

• Yes, this behavior used to work in the previous version

The previous version in which this bug was not present was

No response

Description

The image below shows the results of running npm outdate and ng update.
Both package.json and package-lock.json are specified as 22.0.4. However, the output of ng update indicates that there are no updates.

It seems the ng update command is behaving differently than in previous versions.

Minimal Reproduction

npm outdate
ng update --verbose

Exception or Error

Your Environment

Angular CLI       : 22.0.4
Angular           : 22.0.4
Node.js           : 24.18.0
Package Manager   : npm 11.18.0
Operating System  : linux x64

┌───────────────────────────┬───────────────────┬───────────────────┐
│ Package                   │ Installed Version │ Requested Version │
├───────────────────────────┼───────────────────┼───────────────────┤
│ @angular/build            │ 22.0.4            │ ^22.0.4           │
│ @angular/cli              │ 22.0.4            │ ^22.0.4           │
│ @angular/common           │ 22.0.4            │ ^22.0.4           │
│ @angular/compiler         │ 22.0.4            │ ^22.0.4           │
│ @angular/compiler-cli     │ 22.0.4            │ ^22.0.4           │
│ @angular/core             │ 22.0.4            │ ^22.0.4           │
│ @angular/forms            │ 22.0.4            │ ^22.0.4           │
│ @angular/platform-browser │ 22.0.4            │ ^22.0.4           │
│ @angular/router           │ 22.0.4            │ ^22.0.4           │
│ rxjs                      │ 7.8.2             │ ^7.8.2            │
│ typescript                │ 6.0.3             │ ^6.0.3            │
└───────────────────────────┴───────────────────┴───────────────────┘

Anything else relevant?

No response

[alan-agius4]

Hi @parapada73,

This behavior is working as intended. ng update and npm outdated operate differently:

• ng update checks the version ranges specified in package.json against the npm registry to determine if a newer version exists.
• npm outdated checks the actual versions currently installed in node_modules (or recorded in package-lock.json) against the npm registry.

Because your package.json already specifies a version that matches 22.0.5, ng update correctly reports that no update is required. If node_modules is out of sync with package.json, deleting the lockfile and running npm install will bring your installed packages up to date.