Firebase-admin-node: Error: Failed to initialize Google Cloud Firestore client with the available credentials. Must initialize the SDK with a certificate credential or application default credentials to use Cloud Firestore API

[lpellegr]

Using the new version _8.9.1_ of firebase-admin, firebase-functions deployments using NodeJS 10 with the Firebase CLI fail. Reverting firebase-admin to version _8.9.0_ resolves the issue.

Here is the command used to deploy functions:

$ firebase deploy --only functions

=== Deploying to 'ipregistry-dashboard-dev'...

i deploying functions
Running command: yarn --cwd functions run clean
yarn run v1.21.1
$ rm -rf dist/
Done in 0.04s.
Running command: yarn --cwd functions run lint
yarn run v1.21.1
$ tslint -p tsconfig.json
Done in 2.03s.
Running command: yarn --cwd functions run build
yarn run v1.21.1
$ yarn run lint && ./node_modules/.bin/tsc
$ tslint -p tsconfig.json
Done in 4.63s.
Running command: cp -r $RESOURCE_DIR/keyfiles $RESOURCE_DIR/dist
✔ functions: Finished running predeploy script.
i functions: ensuring necessary APIs are enabled...
✔ functions: all necessary APIs are enabled
i functions: preparing functions directory for uploading...

Error: Error occurred while parsing your function triggers.

Error: Failed to initialize Google Cloud Firestore client with the available credentials. Must initialize the SDK with a certificate credential or application default credentials to use Cloud Firestore API.
at FirebaseFirestoreError.FirebaseError [as constructor] (/home/X/functions/node_modules/firebase-admin/lib/utils/error.js:42:28)
at new FirebaseFirestoreError (/home/X/functions/node_modules/firebase-admin/lib/utils/error.js:220:23)
at getFirestoreOptions (/home/X/functions/node_modules/firebase-admin/lib/firestore/firestore.js:96:11)
at initFirestore (/home/X/functions/node_modules/firebase-admin/lib/firestore/firestore.js:105:19)
at new FirestoreService (/home/X/functions/node_modules/firebase-admin/lib/firestore/firestore.js:43:32)
at /home/X/functions/node_modules/firebase-admin/lib/firebase-app.js:261:20
at FirebaseApp.ensureService_ (/home/X/functions/node_modules/firebase-admin/lib/firebase-app.js:351:23)
at FirebaseApp.firestore (/home/X/functions/node_modules/firebase-admin/lib/firebase-app.js:259:28)
at Object. (/home/X/functions/dist/callables/account-activate.js:10:33)
at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:776:30)

The line 10 from account-active.js is const firestoreDatabase = admin.firestore();.

Firebase admin initialization is made as follows:

import {FirebaseAdminHelper} from '../helpers/firebase-admin-helper';
const admin = FirebaseAdminHelper.initializeApp();
const auth = admin.auth();
const config = functions.config();
const firestoreDatabase = admin.firestore();

where FirebaseAdminHelper is defined as follows:

import * as admin from 'firebase-admin';

export class FirebaseAdminHelper {

    static initializeApp(): admin.app.App {
        try {
            return admin.initializeApp();
        } catch (error) {
            // Ignore "already initialized" errors.
            // This case should only happen locally while deploying, not on real environments.
            return admin.app();
        }
    }

}

[google-oss-bot]

I couldn't figure out how to label this issue, so I've labeled it for a human to triage. Hang tight.

[hiranya911]

What does npm ls firebase-admin say after the upgrade?

[hiranya911]

This happens when the local development environment has been initialized with refresh token credentials. Since you have an admin.firestore() call in the global scope, it attempts to create a Firestore client at the trigger parsing phase. There are couple of different workarounds:

1. Move the admin.firestore() into one of the functions. You don't get any benefit from keeping it in the global scope anyway. Or,
2. Set the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS env variable to specify a service account.

I'm not sure how the CLI is supposed to work in this case. So I'm going to move this to the CLI repo and see what they think.

[hiranya911]

Managed to come up with a fix in our code.

[Lucas-Geitner]

Same here

➜ functions git:(gastonerie2) ✗ npm ls firebase-admin
functions@ /Users/lucasgeitner/work/poesie/poesie.io_app/functions
└── [email protected]

[Lucas-Geitner]

This is how i use firestore so i can use it with the simulator :)

thanks for your help

let admin = require('firebase-admin')
let firestore
let db
let storage
const projectId = 'XX'
let auth
let clean

if (process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'test') {
  admin.initializeApp()
  firestore = admin.firestore
  db = admin.firestore()
  auth = admin.auth
  if (admin && admin.storage && admin.storage()) {
    storage = admin.storage().bucket()
  }
}

if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'test') {
  const firebasetest = require('@firebase/testing')
  admin.initializeApp()

  if (admin && admin.storage && admin.storage()) {
    storage = admin.storage().bucket()
  }

  admin = firebasetest.initializeTestApp({projectId, databaseName: 'firestore'})
  db = admin.firestore()
  auth = admin.auth
  clean = async () => await firebasetest.clearFirestoreData({projectId})
  firestore = admin.firestore
}

module.exports = {db, admin, firestore, auth, clean, storage}

[Lucas-Geitner]

find a way to deploy and login by doing

export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=/Users/lucasgeitner/work/**.json

i just get this error when runing firebase emulators:start :

⚠  functions: Your GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable points to /Users/lucasgeitner/work/****.json. Non-emulated services will access production using these credentials. Be careful!

And as soon i leave my terminal, i have to do again the export

Still thanks for the great work around firebase ;)

[darinw]

temp fix:

npm i [email protected]

issue only seems to affect 8.9.1

[npomfret]

Same problem here using :

admin.initializeApp({ credential: admin.credential.applicationDefault() });

Downgrading using yarn add [email protected] seems to get it working again.

Thanks @darinw

[JoeBeer]

What worked for me was to run following command again:
$ export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS="path/to/key.json"

For more information see this link