Mongoose-Encryption error after push to Heroku

Question

thank you for spending time looking at this problem.

Firstly, when I test this in localhost:3000 it works, there are no errors and I can seamlessly run my application, encrypt my password and push it to MongoDB.

Then, the problem sets in with Heroku after I do my git commits and push it through. The app does not start and crashes. and comes up with errors that I have scoured the internet for and even those who had problems, and I have completely copied there solutions, still have the same error.

heroko logs --tail (hyper console):

throw new Error('must provide either options.secret or both options.encryptionKey and options.signingKey');

however I do provide these and I like I have said, I have scoured and observed the internet:

.!.dotenv has been installed as a node package!!

My server JS:

    require('dotenv').config();
const mongoose = require("mongoose");

const tytyDigitalSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
  username: String,
  password: String,
  email: String,
  verified: Boolean
});

var secret = process.env.SOME_LONG_UNGUESSABLE_STRING;
tytyDigitalSchema.plugin(encrypt, { secret: secret ,  encryptedFields: ['Password']});

const Users = mongoose.model("user", tytyDigitalSchema);

My.env file

SOME_LONG_UNGUESSABLE_STRING=Thisisa32bytebasestring

Lastly, incase it helps, my.gitignore: https://github.com/github/gitignore/blob/main/Node.gitignore

Answer 1

This has solved it: Heroku does not read your.env file as you.gitignore it. Instead in Heroku (application screen), you will see a settings page and a config vars panel, which asks for a key and a value, these fields represent our.env file. So my KEY would have to be:

SOME_LONG_UNGUESSABLE_STRING

and my value would be:

Thisisa32bytebasestring

This will now enable to site to be built correctly and work.