FreeBSD 10 . Virgin install . cpanminus seems unable to determine the version of ExtUtils::MakeMaker after repeated successful installs. This comment just to associate the cpanm --uninst-shadows ExtUtils::MakeMaker as a solution to this problem that worked in my case if anyone else is searching. I had this problem with Poet. The error post: cpanm --notest install MISC::PKG ==> Found dependencies: ExtUtils::MakeMaker ! Installing the dependencies failed: Missing version info for module 'ExtUtils::MakeMaker' ! Bailing out the installation for MISC::PKG