In my case, another program had added PATH
changes to .bashrc
If the other program changed the PATH
after nvm's initialisation, then nvm's PATH
changes would be forgotten, and we would get the system node on our PATH
(or no node).
The solution was to move the nvm setup to the bottom of .bashrc
### BAD .bashrc ###
# NVM initialisation
export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm
# Some other program adding to the PATH:
export PATH="$ANT_ROOT:$PATH"
Solution:
### GOOD .bashrc ###
# Some other program adding to the PATH:
export PATH="$ANT_ROOT:$PATH"
# NVM initialisation
export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm
(This was with bash 4.2.46 on CentOS. It seems to me like a bug in bash, but I may be mistaken.)