I have seen a few posts answering this and saying that “composer require package” or “composer update package” will do this; but absolutely everything i do with composer attempts to update everything listed in require section of composer.json.

I thought perhaps just removing the require lines in composer.json would avoid this mess; but composer then removes these modules from my docroot.

I simply want to remove my broken (not sure why) version of drush on the server and replace it with a new one without updating core or any contrib modules.

composer remove drush/drush – but it fails the removal and then tries to update everything

xxx:~/www/d8$ composer remove drush/drush drush/drush is not required in your composer.json and has not been removed

DrupalProjectcomposerScriptHandler::checkComposerVersion Package “drush/drush” listed for update is not installed. Ignoring. Loading composer repositories with package information Updating dependencies (including require-dev) Your requirements could not be resolved to an installable set of packages.

any composer command i try (rmeove, update, require) seems to want to update everything.. and then fails because of dependencies conflicts (which is good; since I don’t want anything being updated anyway).

composer.json

{     "name": "drupal-composer/drupal-project",     "description": "Project template for Drupal 8 projects with composer",     "type": "project",     "license": "GPL-2.0-or-later",     "authors": [         {             "name": "",             "role": ""         }     ],     "repositories": [         {             "type": "composer",             "url": "https://packages.drupal.org/8"         }     ],     "require": {         "php": ">=7.0.8",         "composer/installers": "^1.2",         "cweagans/composer-patches": "^1.6.5",         "drupal-composer/drupal-scaffold": "^2.5",         "drupal/address": "^1.7",         "drupal/admin_toolbar": "^1.27",         "drupal/auto_entitylabel": "^3.0@beta",         "drupal/backup_migrate": "^4.0",         "drupal/block_class": "^1.0",         "drupal/clientside_validation": "^1.2",         "drupal/coffee": "^1.0@beta",         "drupal/commerce": "2.17",         "drupal/conditional_fields": "^1.0@alpha",         "drupal/console": "^1.0.2",         "drupal/content_access": "^1.0@alpha",         "drupal/core": "^8.7.0",         "drupal/csv_serialization": "^1.4",         "drupal/ctools": "^3.2",         "drupal/date_popup": "^1.0",         "drupal/date_popup_timepicker": "^1.0@alpha",         "drupal/entity_reference_revisions": "^1.7",         "drupal/external_links_new_tab": "^1.2",         "drupal/extlink": "^1.1",         "drupal/field_group": "^1.0",         "drupal/field_permissions": "^1.0@RC",         "drupal/filefield_paths": "^1.0@beta",         "drupal/fillpdf": "4.x-dev",         "drupal/viewsreference": "^1.4",         "drush/drush": "^10.2",         "vlucas/phpdotenv": "^2.4",         "webflo/drupal-finder": "^1.0.0",         "webmozart/path-util": "^2.3",         "zaporylie/composer-drupal-optimizations": "^1.0"     },     "require-dev": {         "webflo/drupal-core-require-dev": "^8.7.0"     },     "conflict": {         "drupal/drupal": "*"     },     "minimum-stability": "dev",     "prefer-stable": true,     "config": {         "sort-packages": true     },     "autoload": {         "classmap": [             "scripts/composer/ScriptHandler.php"         ],         "files": ["load.environment.php"]     },     "scripts": {         "pre-install-cmd": [             "DrupalProject\composer\ScriptHandler::checkComposerVersion"         ],         "pre-update-cmd": [             "DrupalProject\composer\ScriptHandler::checkComposerVersion"         ],         "post-install-cmd": [             "DrupalProject\composer\ScriptHandler::createRequiredFiles"         ],         "post-update-cmd": [             "DrupalProject\composer\ScriptHandler::createRequiredFiles"         ]     },     "extra": {         "composer-exit-on-patch-failure": true,         "patchLevel": {             "drupal/core": "-p2"         },         "installer-paths": {             "web/core": ["type:drupal-core"],             "web/libraries/{$name}": ["type:drupal-library"],             "web/modules/contrib/{$name}": ["type:drupal-module"],             "web/profiles/contrib/{$name}": ["type:drupal-profile"],             "web/themes/contrib/{$name}": ["type:drupal-theme"],             "drush/Commands/contrib/{$name}": ["type:drupal-drush"]         },         "patches": {             "drupal/core": {                 "Drag-drop fix for field group config": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2019-12-09/drupal-tabledrag_testing-2769825-48.patch",                 "part of above": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2019-11-21/3062742_4.patch",                 "multiple terms in views issues": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2019-11-14/drupal-empty_value_fix-2882076-14.patch",                 "more drag-drop fixes": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2019-12-14/3089151-17-D8.patch"             },             "drupal/conditional_fields": {                 "Date field value is always empty": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2020-01-19/conditional_fields-date_fields_empty-2956612-8.patch"             },             "drupal/fillpdf": {                 "Add token support for before/after text": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2020-02-18/3109697-6.patch"             },             "drupal/field_group": {                 "Conditional field support": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2019-12-10/field_group-support_conditional_fields-3099051-6.patch",                 "HTML5 validation broken in tabs": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2019-10-04/field_group-HTML5_validation_prevents_submission_in_tabs-2969051-9.patch"             },             "drupal/serial": {                 "Feeds support": "https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/2020-02-28/serial-feeds-support-3035978-6.patch"             }         },         "drupal-scaffold": {             "initial": {                 ".editorconfig": "../.editorconfig",                 ".gitattributes": "../.gitattributes"             }         }     } }