MEAN.JS MissingSchemaError

Question

I'm playing with MEAN.JS to see how I like it and I got an error that I can usually solve, but this time I can't seem to figure out what I may be doing wrong.

I'm trying to populate a child object using mongooses populate method, but I'm now getting this error: MissingSchemaError: Schema hasn't been registered for model "topic" This makes sense ... makes sure the "topic" model schema is loaded. I thought it should be loaded according to the loading order in MEAN.js

moment.server.model.js

'use strict';

/**
 * Module dependencies.
 */
var mongoose = require('mongoose'),
    Schema = mongoose.Schema;

/**
 * Moment Schema
 */
var MomentSchema = new Schema({
    name: {
        type: String,
        default: '',
        required: 'Please fill Moment name',
        trim: true
    },
    content: {
        type: String,
        default: '',
        trim: true
    },
    created: {
        type: Date,
        default: Date.now
    },
    topic: {
        type: Schema.ObjectId,
        ref: 'Topic'
    },
    user: {
        type: Schema.ObjectId,
        ref: 'User'
    }
});

mongoose.model('Moment', MomentSchema);

topic.server.model.js

'use strict';

/**
 * Module dependencies.
 */
var mongoose = require('mongoose'),
    Schema = mongoose.Schema,
    moment = require('moment-timezone');

/**
 * Topic Schema
 */
var TopicSchema = new Schema({
    name: {
        type: String,
        default: '',
        required: 'Please fill Topic name',
        trim: true
    },
    created: {
        type: Date,
        default: Date.now
    },
    user: {
        type: Schema.ObjectId,
        ref: 'User'
    },
    moments: [
        {
            type: Schema.ObjectId,
            ref: 'Moment'
        }
    ]
});

mongoose.model('Topic', TopicSchema);

The Query that causes the error:

Moment.find().sort('-created').populate('user', 'displayName', 'topic').exec(function(err, moments) { ... }

What might be causing this error and how can I fix it? I've solved this before in other node systems but in meanjs I think I'm missing something fundamental.

Answer 1

Figured it out. I was ignoring how to use populate correctly. To fix, I simply chained another populate call to the other dbRef value as such:

 Moment.find()
    .sort('-created')
    .populate('user', 'displayName')
    .populate('topic')
    .exec(function(err, moments) { 
        // do stuff with results
    });

Now the topic as well as the username is populated.

Just wrote a sticky note to my self entitled: RTFM.