Firebase "throw new Error (" Invalid service account "); error message

Question

I noticed that Firebase has recently changed. I am creating a node.js application that requires firebase, and previously this was enough:

var Firebase = require("firebase"); var firebaseRef = new Firebase("https://blabla.firebaseio.com/"); 

This link: https://firebase.google.com/docs/web/setup#prerequisites

you need to create a firebase project in the new firebase console and then add firebase to your web application. This gives you something similar to:

 // Initialize Firebase var config = { apiKey: '<your-api-key>', authDomain: '<your-auth-domain>', databaseURL: '<your-database-url>', storageBucket: '<your-storage-bucket>' }; firebase.initializeApp(config); 

However, when starting my node.js application, I get the following error message:

 throw new Error('Invalid service account provided'); ^ Error: Invalid service account provided at new Auth (C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\node_modules\firebase\auth-node\auth.js:61:11) at Object.serviceFactory [as auth] (C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\node_modules\firebase\auth-node\index.js:14:14) at Fu (C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\node_modules\firebase\app-node.js:14:94) at C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\node_modules\firebase\auth-node\index.js:31:9 at C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\node_modules\firebase\app-node.js:11:272 at Array.forEach (native) at Object.e.initializeApp (C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\node_modules\firebase\app-node.js:11:245) at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Projects\lambdaTestFunction\index.js:44:10) at Module._compile (module.js:409:26) at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:416:10) 

What exactly am I missing?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

This is not obvious from the documents, but in order to use Firebase on the server side, you need to authenticate with a “service account”, which means creating some credentials, loading them and initializing the firebase library in a different way than in the browser.

If you are porting the Node.js application, you now need to authenticate with the service account. For detailed instructions, see the server SDK docs.

More details in the docs: https://firebase.google.com/docs/server/setup#add_firebase_to_your_app

Answer 2

I use Firebase with Electron, it seems that for electronic applications you also need service accounts.