Cannot connect to Neon database from local machine (Node)

Hi, I want to interact with my Neon database from my machine (that will make development easier) I'm using Node + Express as an API that communicates with Neon. I can connect to the database with pgadmin and psql from my machine. The deployed version of the API can connect to Neon as well, but I can't connect from local Node. The environment variables are correct. Code:

import pg from 'pg'
import express from 'express'

const app = express()
const port = process.env.PORT

const { Pool } = pg
const pool = new Pool({
    connectionString: process.env.POSTGRES_URL
})

pool.connect()

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.send("Hello from Express!")
})

app.listen(port, '0.0.0.0')

import pg from 'pg'
import express from 'express'

const app = express()
const port = process.env.PORT

const { Pool } = pg
const pool = new Pool({
    connectionString: process.env.POSTGRES_URL
})

pool.connect()

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.send("Hello from Express!")
})

app.listen(port, '0.0.0.0')

Error:

Error: connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:5432
    at /home/username/Projects/project-name/backend/node_modules/pg-pool/index.js:45:11
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5) {
  errno: -111,
  code: 'ECONNREFUSED',
  syscall: 'connect',
  address: '127.0.0.1',
  port: 5432
}

Node.js v18.19.0
[nodemon] app crashed - waiting for file changes before starting...

Error: connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:5432
    at /home/username/Projects/project-name/backend/node_modules/pg-pool/index.js:45:11
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5) {
  errno: -111,
  code: 'ECONNREFUSED',
  syscall: 'connect',
  address: '127.0.0.1',
  port: 5432
}

Node.js v18.19.0
[nodemon] app crashed - waiting for file changes before starting...

It looks like it's trying to connect to 127.0.0.1 (localhost), even though it should be connecting to Neon?

15 Replies

adverse-sapphire•2y ago

This very much looks like a .env issue when you look at your .env file. does the url look like

POSTGRES_URL=postgresql://neon_owner:somePassword@.....eu-central-1.aws.neon.tech/SomeDb?sslmode=require

POSTGRES_URL=postgresql://neon_owner:somePassword@.....eu-central-1.aws.neon.tech/SomeDb?sslmode=require

xenial-blackOP•2y ago

Yeah, but it is quoted

adverse-sapphire•2y ago

that shouldn't do any issue did you console log process.env.POSTGRES_URL to see if it is set correctly?

xenial-blackOP•2y ago

It returns undefined

adverse-sapphire•2y ago

are you using the normal nodejs runtime

xenial-blackOP•2y ago

Maybe that's it. It works on production though

adverse-sapphire•2y ago

if so it doesn't load env files automatically

xenial-blackOP•2y ago

Yeah i'm using normal runtime

adverse-sapphire•2y ago

are you maybe using the dotenv package in prod to inject it? node -r dotenv/config yourFile.js should do the trick

xenial-blackOP•2y ago

It's the same in prod, i haven't configured anything related to environment variables. I just entered them in the platform's variables editor.

adverse-sapphire•2y ago

https://www.npmjs.com/package/dotenv dotenv loads env files for you

npm

dotenv

Loads environment variables from .env file. Latest version: 16.4.5, last published: 2 months ago. Start using dotenv in your project by running npm i dotenv. There are 42370 other projects in the npm registry using dotenv.

adverse-sapphire•2y ago

ah yeah that would explain it if you host it somewhere that handles environment variables for you there is no need to do anything. But when you code locally you will need to handle this yourself

xenial-blackOP•2y ago

Yeah, I've never done backend before. I'm quite new to this stuff. Thank you for helping!

adverse-sapphire•2y ago

No problem, did the dotenv command fix it?

xenial-blackOP•2y ago

Yes it worked. I added the npm package

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Cannot connect to Neon database from local machine (Node)

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