Firebase functions emulator does not watch for changes - firebase

Environment info
firebase --version --> 11.1.0
node -v --> v16.15.1
npm -v --> 8.11.0
Platform:
Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS 64-bit
Steps to reproduce
1). run firebase init functions
2). Select Use an existing project and choose my project.
3). Select Javascript for the language.
4). Type N and press enter to not use eslint.
5). Type Y and press enter to install dependencies.
6). run firebase emulators:start or firebase emulators:start --only functions
7). Open functions/index.js and uncomment the helloWorld example, and save.
Expected behavior
I expect the functions emulator to detect the changes to the javascript code and to automatically apply those changes without restarting the emulator (manually).
Actual behavior
Nothing changes. I have to restart the emulator to use the helloWorld function. Or if the function was there when the emulator was started I have to restart it to see changes made to the function itself. If I make changes to the firestore.rules file while running the firestore emulator those changes are registered without restarting the emulator(s) like it's supposed to.

If you're using "native" Node.js, any changes/modification in the code after running the emulator will not be reflected. By using different Javascript library, you can transpile/compile your code as watch mode before running Firebase emulator to see the changes upon modification of the code. You can also refer to this documentation:
Code changes you make during an active session are automatically
reloaded by the emulator. If your code needs to be transpiled
(TypeScript, React) make sure to do so before running the emulator.
You can run your transpiler in watch mode with commands like tsc -w to
transpile and reload code automatically as you save.

Related

Shut down JVM when Firebase emulator closes

firebase-tools is an NPM package that uses the JVM. It includes an emulators:start command which fires up the JVM, and it has the JVM use some ports (defined in settings) for the emulators' input/output.
I use MacOS. I use a VSCode terminal to start/end the emulators, and define the details of how to start using an NPM script. Like this:
npm run build && firebase emulators:start --only functions,auth,firestore,database --import ./db-temp
In other words, run the build script, then start some emulator services.
So when running the emulators, I:
Open a terminal,
Navigate to the folder containing the script
Run the script (npm run serve)
This gives me a convenient place to get feedback from the emulators for things like errors, network activity, etc.
If I close VSCode using VSCode's X button, everything in VSCode is immediately shut down. When the terminal is closed, the JVM doesn't detect this and quit: it keeps running. Then when I open VSCode and try running my script again, it tells me that the port normally used by the emulators is still open, because the JVM didn't shut down properly. So I have to track down the JVM process, Force Quit it, and then everything works fine.
To shut the emulators down properly, I have to go to the terminal process running the emulators, press ALT+C to close the process, and then close VSCode. This extra step is inconvenient, and easily forgotten.
Can I convince the JVM to shut down when its originating process terminates via a configuration option? I looked through the configuration options on my local machine via java and java -x, and didn't see anything promising, but I am sure that there are people who know much more about Java than I do.
The Firebase emulator has an environment variable available for Java configuration.
I would be open to other options if available: telling VSCode to automatically shut down terminals properly before exiting, for example.
Or must this be handled by firebase-tools itself, perhaps via a ShutdownHook?
After a little conversation with Firebase and some troubleshooting, I learned a few things:
This issue only occurs when running firebase emulators:start --only firestore,database: when they run together, the Firestore process never closes. Start either one by itself and everything closes fine. This leads me to suspect that this is a bug.
This is reproducible outside VSCode, leading me to suspect that the issue has nothing to do with VSCode.
I filed https://github.com/firebase/firebase-tools/issues/4657. We'll see how it turns out.

Firebase CLI tool is freezing when I type 'firebase init'

I installed the firebase command line tool and logged in successfully. I type
firebase init
in terminal, within my project directory, and I get the option to choose Database, Functions, or Hosting. I use the arrows and space bar to select Functions, press enter, and am presented with a list of projects. From this point forward I cannot do anything in terminal. I have to quit terminal in order to use it again. I am running OSX El Capitan, 10.11.6. I contacted Apple Support and they recommended talking with Firebase first, who in turn recommends asking stack overflow first. Any idea what the problem may be?
See the comment above, Node v8.0 and 8.1 both had regressions that broke the Firebase CLI. I upgraded my version of Node from 8.1.0 to 8.1.3, and everything works fine.

Meteor android build version

I have a strange issue. I build my Meteor app and run it on android device using -
meteor run android-device --mobile-server=<my_aws_ip>:3000
When the app deploys immediately it connects to the server (and my javascripts etc works). After a few seconds, the page refreshs and none of the javascript callbacks work. Please help me debug this issue.
More information: If I change the client (and not the server), and deploy it, for the first few seconds, the changed client gets shown on the phone. After the first few seconds, the version which is present on the server is shown. So I think Cordova or Meteor is trying to fetch the client code from the server, which is breaking the app. Is there a way to prevent this behavior?
Even more data points -
My aws code does NOT have android and ios platforms installed. Because of this, I think the cordova plugins are not installed, causing a JS break somewhere.
Easiest fix I can think of is remove cordova autoupdate. This is being added by meteor-platform package. If I clone meteor-platform and comment out the cordova autoupdate, the app doesn't load.
Is there another way of removing autoupdate?
This sounds like you have a different version of your app deployed at the mobile-server address.
The local code is run in development mode. Your AWS one is likely in production mode (and may contain a syntax error).
When you run your app it sees the code is different and fetches the new/old (different) version with a hot code reload - hence the page refresh/flash.
To fix this, you need to find the syntax error in your code. It's best to view the ADB logger or run with meteor run --verbose android-device ....
This will provide a bit more information such as an Uncaught exception: cannot read .. of null error type error.
It's hard to say what the error is. The error prevents the rest of your code from executing. In production mode the entire project is one JS file. If there is an error of any kind half way along the file, the rest of the file will not execute.
Also, try loading <my_aws_ip>:3000 in your browser and watch for JS errors in the JS console.
You can also run it locally with --production to simulate a production build environment locally.
Enabling autoupdate but without a page refresh:
Reload._reload = function (options) {
console.log("Next load will load new version");
};

webstorm - meteor doesn't restart - how to remove --once option?

I'm using webstorm for meteor dev.
I've configured a meteor project, and can run my app
however, making a change doesn't trigger the meteor server to restart or rebuild, as it does when running a normal server instance.
Looking at the command being run, they have inserted --once into the command line:
/usr/local/bin/meteor --once run --settings private/local.json
I've added the --settings option in the config dialog.
is there a way to remove that? I guess it will mean a lot of restarts with how webstorm works but so be it. the alternative - manually restarting the whole server all the time is not usable.
http://blog.jetbrains.com/webstorm/2014/09/meteor-support-in-webstorm-9/
When WebStorm runs Meteor it uses the -once which disables Meteor’s
auto reload feature. The reason for this is that the way it currently
works is incompatible with WebStorms autosave option. We are working
with the Meteor team/community to try and think of ways in which we
could provide this feature from within WebStorm. But that it still in
the works.
WebStorm's autosave feature is evil, and hundreds of people have complained about it.
WebStorm should run meteor without the --once parameter, which will enable you to save when you deem it's a good time to do so. To that effect, disable Appearance & Behavior -> System settings -> Save files on frame deactivation and Save files automatically if..., and assign a keyboard shortcut to File -> Save or File -> Save All.
UPDATE
Funny how this has -1 votes, when JetBrains has recognized the problem and fixed the issue in WebStorm.
I couldn't find a way to remove it but I was able to create a Bash script to run my server command instead of doing it in the console. I'm using PhpStorm I believe it should be the same.
The first thing you need to do is create a simple bash script which is essentially is the code you'd run in console. Below is my code:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
meteor --settings settings.json
Once the file is created, go to Run->Edit Configurations.
Under Defaults select Bash and click the plus sign at the top left of the modal.
Name your script. Name:
Reference your script. Script:
Select Run '[Script Name]' from the Run menu.
Hopefully this is helpful and helps a few people.

Way to debug Meteor code? [duplicate]

Does anyone know a good method to debug server side code?
I tried enable Node.js debug then use node-inspector but it does not show any of my code.
I end up using console.log but this is very inefficient.
Update: I found the following procedure works on my Linux machine:
When you run Meteor, it will spawn two processes
process1: /usr/lib/meteor/bin/node /usr/lib/meteor/app/meteor/meteor.js
process2: /usr/lib/meteor/bin/node /home/paul/codes/bbtest_code/bbtest02/.meteor/local/build/main.js --keepalive
You need to send kill -s USR1 on process2
Run node-inspector and you can see your server code
On my first try, I modify the last line on meteor startup script in /usr/lib/meteor/bin/meteor to
exec "$DEV_BUNDLE/bin/node" $NODE_DEBUG "$METEOR" "$#"
and run NODE_DEBUG=--debug meteor on command prompt. This only put --debug flag on process1 so I only see meteor files on node-inspector and could not find my code.
Can someone check this on Windows and Mac machine?
In Meteor 0.5.4 this has become a lot easier:
First run the following commands from the terminal:
npm install -g node-inspector
node-inspector &
export NODE_OPTIONS='--debug-brk'
meteor
And then open http://localhost:8080 in your browser to view the node-inspector console.
Update
Since Meteor 1.0 you can just type
meteor debug
which is essentially a shortcut for the above commands, and then launch node inspector in your browser as mentioned.
Update
In Meteor 1.0.2 a console or shell has been added. It may come in handy to output variables and run commands on the server:
meteor shell
Meteor apps are Node.js apps. When running a Meteor app with the meteor [run] command, you can configure the NODE_OPTIONS environment variable to start node in debug mode.
Examples of NODE_OPTIONS environment variable values:
--debug
--debug=47977 - specify a port
--debug-brk - break on the first statement
--debug-brk=5858 - specify a port and break on the first statement
If you export NODE_OPTIONS=--debug, all meteor command run from the same shell will inherit the environment variable. Alternatively, you can enable debugging just for one run, with NODE_OPTIONS="--debug=47977" meteor.
To debug, run node-inspector in a different shell, then go to http://localhost:8080/debug?port=<the port you specified in NODE_OPTIONS>, regardless of what node-inspector tells you to run.
To start node.js in debug mode, I did it this way:
open /usr/lib/meteor/app/meteor/run.js
before
nodeOptions.push(path.join(options.bundlePath, 'main.js'));
add
nodeOptions.push('--debug');
Here are additional practical steps for your to attach debugger eclipse:
use '--debug-brk' instead of '--debug' here, because it's easier for me to attach node.js using eclipse as debugger.
add 'debugger;' in the code where you want to debug.(I prefer this way personally)
run meteor in console
attach to node.js in eclipse(V8 tools, attach to localhost:5858)
run, wait for debugger to be hit
when you start meteor in your meteor app folder, you'll see that "debugger listening on port 5858" in console.
On Meteor 1.0.3.1 (update to Sergey.Simonchik answer)
Start your server with meteor run --debug-port=<port-number>
Point browser to http://localhost:6222/debug?port=<port-number>
Where <port-number> is a port you specify.
In your code add a debugger; where you want to set your break point.
Depending on where debugger; is invoked, it will either break on your client or server browser window with inspector opened.
I like to set breakpoints via a GUI. This way I don't have to remember to remove any debugging code from my app.
This is how I managed to do it server side for my local meteor app:
meteor debug
start your app this way.
Open Chrome to the address it gives you. You MAY need to install https://github.com/node-inspector/node-inspector (it might come bundled with Meteor now? not sure)
You'll see some weird internal meteor code (not the app code you wrote). Press play to run the code. This code simply starts up your server to listen for connections.
Only after you press play you'll see a new directory in your debugger folder structure called "app". In there are your meteor project files. Set a breakpoint in there one the line you want.
Open the local address of your app. This will run your server side code and you you should be able to hit your breakpoint!
Note: you have to reopen the inspector and go through this process again each time your app restarts!
As of Meteor 1.0.2 probably the best way for server-side debugging is directly via the new built-in shell: with running server run meteor shell. More info here: https://www.meteor.com/blog/2014/12/19/meteor-102-meteor-shell
I am not sure why it was not working for you.
I am able to use it by following steps on console (Mac).
$ ps
$ kill -s USR1 *meteor_node_process_id*
$ node-inspector &
Above steps are mentioned on https://github.com/dannycoates/node-inspector. It is for attaching node-inspector to running node process.
I wrote a small meteor package called meteor-inspector which simplifies the use of node-inspector to debug meteor apps. It internally manages the lifecycle of node-inspector and hence, the user does not need to restart the debugger manually after some files have changed.
For more details and concrete usage instructions take a look at https://github.com/broth-eu/meteor-inspector.
for meteor 1.3.5.2, run
meteor debug --debug-port 5858+n
n is a non-zero number, this will cause node-inspector use 8080+n as web port.
WebStorm, the powerful IDE free for open source developers, makes it much easier to debug server-side.
I've tested it on Windows, and the configuration was painless - see my answer.
A inspector that solve my issues is meteor server console. Here is the process I followed to install it:
In your project folder, add the smart package server-eval:
mrt add server-eval
For Meteor 1.0:
meteor add gandev:server-eval
Restart meteor.
Download crx Chrome extension file from here.
Open extensions page in Chrome and drag crx file to extensions page.
Restart Chrome.
Check the web inspector out to eval server side code:
In comparison with node-inspector, I have a clearer output.
If you prefer to use nodeJS' official debugger you can call NODE_OPTIONS='--debug' meteor and then (on a different shell) node debug localhost:5858.

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