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I am trying to connect to firebase using my Node.js web app, but beginning last Friday I started to experience issues that intermittently caused my app not to receive any data from firebase and to timing out. I think it's an issue with firebase, but to be safe I reverted to an older/simpler version that had worked fine. However, my old version also did not work.

For debugging I have been focusing on a "test" scenario. In my app.js file I have the route app.get('/listener/test', listener.test); and in my listener route I have:

DeviceListener.prototype.test = function() {
    var url = 'wss://developer-api.nest.com/';
    var dataRef =new Firebase(url);
    console.log("Testing. Attempting to authenticate firebase.");
    dataRef.auth(this.token, function (error, result) {
        if (error) console.log("Firebase Authentication Error: " + error);
        else {
            console.log("Firebase authentication success");
            dataRef.on("child_changed", function(snapshot){
                var device_data = snapshot.val();
                console.log(JSON.stringify(device_data));
                console.log("Device Changed");
            });
        }
    });
}

However, when I go to /listener/test I only have the console output: 

at=info method=GET path="/listener/test" host=ooma2.herokuapp.com request_id=f1de66a2-2086-4aa1-b4a9-5a399110850a fwd="38.112.2.94" dyno=web.1 connect=3ms service=30ms status=302 bytes=707 
heroku/router:  at=info method=GET path="/" host=ooma2.herokuapp.com request_id=f8c42a92-8e0d-489c-ba37-fc10a7286d4d fwd="38.112.2.94" dyno=web.1 connect=2ms service=13ms status=302 bytes=698 
heroku/router:  at=info method=GET path="/login" host=ooma2.herokuapp.com request_id=3826633b-3159-4495-82a4-966739066b8a fwd="38.112.2.94" dyno=web.1 connect=2ms service=26ms status=304 bytes=738 
app/web.1:  Testing. Attempting to authenticate firebase. 
heroku/router:  at=info method=GET path="/stylesheet/login.css" host=ooma2.herokuapp.com request_id=057aa990-57ee-4aac-91f2-e1543d2a9c02 fwd="38.112.2.94" dyno=web.1 connect=2ms service=7ms status=404 bytes=679 
heroku/router:  at=info method=GET path="/stylesheet/ooma.css" host=ooma2.herokuapp.com request_id=2f483b7b-a8f5-467a-bdf4-4c594ca0c2e0 fwd="38.112.2.94" dyno=web.1 connect=2ms service=5ms status=404 bytes=678 
heroku/router:  at=error code=H12 desc="Request timeout" method=GET path="/bower_components/firebase/firebase.js" host=ooma2.herokuapp.com request_id=533d2333-bb0e-4fcf-b81f-fc0dd5bd1808 fwd="38.112.2.94" dyno=web.1 connect=3ms service=30001ms status=503 bytes=681 
heroku/router:  at=error code=H12 desc="Request timeout" method=GET path="/js/login.js" host=ooma2.herokuapp.com request_id=971d1823-a9fd-4f85-b488-2d77f209acec fwd="38.112.2.94" dyno=web.1 connect=1ms service=30001ms status=503 bytes=655 
heroku/router:  at=error code=H12 desc="Request timeout" method=GET path="/bower_components/jquery-cookie/jquery.cookie.js" host=ooma2.herokuapp.com request_id=bcde664a-e580-4854-bd12-47df563464f0 fwd="38.112.2.94" dyno=web.1 connect=1ms service=30001ms status=503 bytes=691 
heroku/router:  at=error code=H12 desc="Request timeout" method=GET path="/bower_components/jquery/dist/jquery.js" host=ooma2.herokuapp.com request_id=969c6fd0-9801-4f78-af59-10e63ad52fa9 fwd="38.112.2.94" dyno=web.1 connect=33ms service=30033ms status=503 bytes=684

Since neither the message Firebase Authentication Error: ... nor Firebase Authentication Success are logged, I guess that means the authentication never completed.

Is that sound logic? Because if so, I'm not sure how to proceed in fixing/coping with it. I would greatly appreciate any thoughts and ideas about this, or any alternative explanations. Also, has anybody else experienced anything similar? Especially beginning around 8/1/14?

sgussman
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    This looks like something discussed in heroku docs https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/http-routing#timeouts which doesnt let you keep a connection w/o data being sent for more than 55 seconds. – Nagesh Susarla Aug 06 '14 at 18:34
  • I think that's it, except firebase has very fast response times. I talked with a developer at Firebase who had experienced the same issue when hosting a Node.js web app on Heroku that was using Firebase. He suggested using another cloud platform to resolve the issue. It's just an endemic problem with using free servers like Heroku. To debug the issue I used my Heroku app to get the auth tokens, and then hosted the rest of my app locally to communicate with firebase and prove that the issue wasn't on my end. – sgussman Aug 07 '14 at 17:23

1 Answers1

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I've been having the same problem for the past couple of days. This evening I downgraded my version of node to v0.10.20, and the problem seems to have been fixed, but I will only know with more time. You might try putting this in package.json:

  "engines": {
         "node": "0.10.20",
         "npm": ">=1.3"
     }

(Earlier I posted an answer about writing a 'heartbeat' function which would ping Firebase every 30 seconds to prevent a timeout. That seemed to work for awhile, but the problem came back later.)

mhuebert
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