Google App Engine - Node: Cannot find module 'firebase-admin'

Question

First time deploying a GAE app here, I\'m trying to follow this tutorial: https://firebase.googleblog.com/2016/08/sending-notifications-between-android.html (see node code secti

Answer 1

These issues seem to be caused by a misunderstanding of how require() paths work. You cannot use an absolute path because something like require("/Users/username/somepath") obviously won't exist on the remote machine when the app is deployed and the import will fail. Using require("serviceAccountKey.json") is going to look in node_modules/serviceAccountKey.json relative to the app directory.

If you want to load serviceAccountKey.json from the app's root directory, you would use require("./serviceAccountKey.json"). If it were in a subdirectory called foo under the root you'd use require("./foo/serviceAccountKey.json"). This also applies to loading modules in general such as firebase-admin.

The NodeJS Modules documentation explains the require() mechanism in greater detail.

Answer 2

I had a similar problem running gcloud app deploy

Error: Cannot find module 'webpack-dev-server'
at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:469:15)

I solved the issue moving the given dependency (wepack-dev-server) from devDependencies to dependencies in package.json.

In case somebody else has the same problem I suggest to have look at your dependencies in package.json. dependencies are required to run, devDependencies only to develop, e.g.: unit tests, Coffeescript to Javascript transpilation, minification,

Answer 3

I could make a workaround on this proceeding like this: (passing the serviceAccountkeyFile.json parameters inside app.js code):

let defaultAppConfig = {
    credential: admin.credential.cert({
        type: "service_account",
        project_id: "txxxxxxxxxx",
        private_key_id: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
        private_key: "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY----------END PRIVATE KEY-----\n",
        client_email: "firebaxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.gserviceaccount.com",
        client_id: "11111111111111111",
        auth_uri: "https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth",
        token_uri: "https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token",
        auth_provider_x509_cert_url: "https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/certs",
        client_x509_cert_url: "https://www.googleapis.com/robot/v1/metadata/x509/jjjjjj.gserviceaccount.com"
    }),
    databaseURL: 'https://projectxxx.firebaseio.com/'
}

defaultApp = admin.initializeApp(defaultAppConfig);