Cannot find module dotenv

1

I was finally able to deploy my application to Heroku, but there’s a new problem. When I try to view the app I get a page that says “Application Error”. When I open the heroku logs, it says “Cannot find module dotenv”.

But I do have dotenv in my package.json and my package-lock.json

I figured the problem was that dotenv was listed as a devDependency so I tried npm i dotenv and even npm i -D dotenv. I also made sure to restart VSC afterwards, but nothing seems to be getting rid of the error.

2

Right, it should definitely be used in your dependencies, not dev. But when I look in your package.json:

  "dependencies": {
    "axios": "^0.27.2",
    "express": "^4.18.1",
    "mongoose": "^6.5.0",
    "react-icons": "^4.4.0"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "dotenv": "^16.0.1",
    "nodemon": "^2.0.19"
  },

And I’m not sure what “I also made sure to restart VSC afterwards” will do - the issue is heroku - you have to remember to redeploy there.

3

Some of the other forums suggested we restart our code editors once we retry installing dotenv. Redeploying hasn’t worked out yet.

As for putting dotenv in the dependency section; should I just copy paste it from dev dependencies, then hit npm install? I tried doing npm install dotenv to begin with, but it didn’t work

4

Either should work. You can do npm i dotenv" or manually edit it and npm i`. The important thing is that you have it in your dependencies and not dev dependencies.
If you want to be extra sure, delete package-lock.json and the node_modules folder before installing. Then you need to push that to heroku.

5

After deleting the folders, should I reinstall them first before pushing, or no?

6

SUCCESS!!

Now I just need to hire a web design expert lol!

1 Like
7

reinstalling before push … yes and no. It won’t matter for the node_modules because you aren’t pushing them anyway. But it does matter for the lock file - that gets pushed and is important so it knows exactly which version to use for consistency. So, yes, install before push.

8

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