Cannot find module 'firebase-admin/app'

[sankalpsans]

package.json requirements look like this –

  "dependencies": {
    "@sentry/node": "^5.30.0",
    "body-parser": "1.19.0",
    "express": "^4.17.1",
    "firebase-admin": "10.0.0",
    "mysql": "^2.18.1",
    "pug": "3.0.2"
  }

node_modules has the corresponding module in the path ~/node_modules/firebase-admin/lib/app

Node code reads as –

const initializeApp  = require('firebase-admin/app');

And when the app is run, the following stacktrace emerges.

 Error: Cannot find module 'firebase-admin/app'
     at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:547:15)
     at Function.Module._load (module.js:474:25)
     at Module.require (module.js:596:17)
     at require (internal/module.js:11:18)
     at Object.<anonymous> (/var/www/html/project/backend/main.js:16:24)
     at Module._compile (module.js:652:30)
     at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:663:10)
     at Module.load (module.js:565:32)
     at tryModuleLoad (module.js:505:12)
     at Function.Module._load (module.js:497:3)

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[shalomhalbert]

I have the same issue. For some reason, running npm install resolved the error when running mocha tests from a non-debug terminal instance in Visual Studio Code, but running mocha tests from a debug terminal instance still yields this error. The node_modules package is definitely installed.

[shalomhalbert]

Solved it by ignoring the import recommendation. Instead of

'use strict';

const { initializeApp } = require('firebase-admin/app');
const { getFirestore, Timestamp, GeoPoint } = require('firebase-admin/firestore');

exports.initializeApp = () => initializeApp();
exports.getFirestore = () => getFirestore();
exports.Timestamp = Timestamp;
exports.GeoPoint = GeoPoint;

I am now using what existed before v10:

'use strict';

const firebaseAdmin = require('firebase-admin');

exports.initializeApp = () => firebaseAdmin.initializeApp();
exports.getFirestore = () => firebaseAdmin.firestore();
exports.Timestamp = firebaseAdmin.firestore.Timestamp;
exports.GeoPoint = firebaseAdmin.firestore.GeoPoint;

[hiranya911]

Code given above worked fine when executed through Node.js 12. Here's the output of the execution with an added console.log statement:

% cat main.js 
'use strict';

const { initializeApp } = require('firebase-admin/app');
const { getFirestore, Timestamp, GeoPoint } = require('firebase-admin/firestore');

exports.initializeApp = () => initializeApp();
exports.getFirestore = () => getFirestore();
exports.Timestamp = Timestamp;
exports.GeoPoint = GeoPoint;

console.log(exports);


% node main.js 
{
  initializeApp: [Function],
  getFirestore: [Function],
  Timestamp: [class Timestamp],
  GeoPoint: [class GeoPoint]
}

Also I can do the following on a Node.js REPL:

% node
Welcome to Node.js v12.22.0.
Type ".help" for more information.
> const { initializeApp } = require('firebase-admin/app')
undefined
> initializeApp
[Function: initializeApp]

May be somebody can share a minimal and complete repro of the issue? Something that we can download and run to repro the problem?

[sankalpsans]

@hiranya911 I am currently using node v17.0.1. Is it known to not work with this? Is the solution to downgrade to v12 instead?

Edit – I can confirm that downgrading to v12 did solve the issue.

[sankalpsans]

@shalbert94 Importing the top level module and then accessing internal things like you suggested works.
That is exactly the workaround that I proceeded with.

So, either the docs need updating, or the library itself does.

[hiranya911]

Works fine on Node 17 too:

$ node
Welcome to Node.js v17.0.1.
Type ".help" for more information.
> const { initializeApp }  = require('firebase-admin/app')
undefined
> initializeApp
[Function: initializeApp]

This is most likely a problem specific to your environment/implementation. We will need a complete, minimal repro to know for sure.

As fas as our library is concerned, we correctly declare the new module entry points in our package.json file:

firebase-admin-node/package.json

Lines 106 to 111 in b26501b

	"exports": {
	".": "./lib/index.js",
	"./app": {
	"require": "./lib/app/index.js",
	"import": "./lib/esm/app/index.js"
	},

All Node.js versions 12 and up, should support it.

[hiranya911]

Edit – I can confirm that downgrading to v12 did solve the issue.

Assuming there are no other libraries, frameworks or custom module loaders in play, more likely explanation is your Node 17 setup was somehow loading an old version of firebase-admin (e.g. v9), that didn't have the new module exports. Changing to Node 12 pulled in the latest version of the library, and picked up the new entry points. Just a guess.

[hiranya911]

I pushed a copy of my attempt to repro this issue to https://github.com/firebase/firebase-admin-node/tree/hkj-repro-1488/nodetest. Feel free to play with it and see if you can still repro the problem.

[Bandit]

I'm also getting this error when using the snippet provided:

import { initializeApp, applicationDefault } from 'firebase-admin/app';

=> Error: Cannot find module 'firebase-admin/app'

Node v14.16.1

Confirming that using import firebaseAdmin from 'firebase-admin' resolves it, however that's a big headache. For now I've given up on this approach and gone back to using import Firestore from '@google-cloud/firestore' (and it looks like firebase-admin just wraps that anyway so no harm I guess?)

[hiranya911]

@Bandit can you share a complete repro with us? Something similar to the complete example I've shared above in my last comment.

[hiranya911]

Folks who are seeing this error also please check their library version using one of the following methods:

Using npm ls

$ npm ls firebase-admin       
mods@1.0.0 
└── firebase-admin@10.0.0

Directly checking the package.json of the library

$ grep "version" node_modules/firebase-admin/package.json
  "version": "10.0.0"

If the version is indeed 10.x or higher, please share a complete repro that we can run.

[Bandit]

Confirmed I'm using firebase-admin@10.0.0

I'll see about building a repro when I get some time, but I'm assuming it's related to Vite (using Vite + Sveltekit). Perhaps fixed by this hot-off-the-press PR vitejs/vite#5593? Or maybe it's this bug vitejs/vite#4340? Bit beyond my pay grade