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Question

Following this example, I keep getting the error:

 TypeError: firebase.storage is not a function

From this line in my code:

var storageRef = firebase.storage().ref();

(And when I simply try to initialize storage from the storage guide, linked from firebase's npm site, I get the same error.)

In my Node.js project, I'm including the following libraries:

const firebase = require('firebase');
var admin = require('firebase-admin');
const fs = require('fs');

Up to this point, I've successfully been able to read from and write to the firebase database, creating a reference to the database with var db = admin.database(), then var ref = db.ref("/")... So I know I've configured Firebase and firebase-database correctly. But I'm stuck on storage, and have tried both admin.storage().ref() and firebase.storage().ref(), and firebase.storage().ref("/") with the same error message.

I've also tried:

var storage = firbase.storage();
var storageRef = storage.ref();

and

const app = firebase.initializeApp(config);
var storage = app.storage();

and with ref()'s void argument () and with "/"... but have the same message, yet to no avail.

I'm using:

"firebase": "^3.6.4"
"firebase-admin": "^4.0.4"
Node.js : v6.9.1

What must I do to successfully create a reference to storage?

Accepted Answer

I faced the same problem. In my case, I needed to include storage module besides Firebase core.

import firebase from 'firebase/app';
import 'firebase/storage';  // <----

firebase.initializeApp({
  ...
});
const storageRef = firebase.storage().ref();

(npm firebase v5.0.4)

Accepted Answer

DEPRECATED, see below:

According to this answer, instead of firebase storage, in Node.js, google-cloud package storage should be used, and it seems that this answer should confirm it. Code example:

npm i --save google-cloud

Then:

const gcloud = require('google-cloud')

const storage = gcloud.storage({
    projectId: '<projectID>',
    keyFilename: 'service-account-credentials.json',
});

const bucket = storage.bucket('<projectID>.appspot.com')

As of 2018, this is the correct answer:

Or using only the storage part of the package:

npm install --save @google-cloud/storage

And then:

var storage = require('@google-cloud/storage')

Also check the docs for more.

Answer 3

Deprecated: please see the accepted answer.

Some details to note:

Firebase Storage is no longer used with Node.js, so all documentation there is useless for Node.js. Instead, use google-cloud. The references and guides for Firebase and Google Cloud do not reflect this as of today.
Unlike Firebase, google-cloud costs money, even for small projects.
In my case, I'm using the firebase-admin SDK so I don't have to mess with user authentication at the moment.

Purpose

To create a single Node.js project which uses Firebase and Google Cloud. Why? Firebase has a useful database, among other features, and Google Cloud allows cloud file storage and retrieval.