Unable to start Firebase emulators

[rvahlin]

firebase-tools:
13.5.2

Platform:
macOS
Sonoma 14.3.1

[REQUIRED] Test case

I followed the instructions in the Install, configure and integrate Local Emulator Suite guide. When I start up the emulators by running firebase emulators:start, all emulators except for Emulator Suite UI will start but the UI emulators throws an error:

Fatal error occurred: Emulator UI has exited with code: 1, stopping all running emulators

When I review my ui-debug.log, I can see the below message:

`node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:986
throw new ERR_REQUIRE_ESM(filename, true);
^

Error [ERR_REQUIRE_ESM]: require() of ES Module /Users/XXXXX/.cache/firebase/emulators/ui-v1.11.8/server/server.mjs not supported.
Instead change the require of /Users/XXXXX/.cache/firebase/emulators/ui-v1.11.8/server/server.mjs to a dynamic import() which is available in all CommonJS modules.
at Function.runMain (pkg/prelude/bootstrap.js:1979:12) {
code: 'ERR_REQUIRE_ESM'
}

Node.js v18.5.0`

Don't know why the log states "Node.js v18.5.0", as I'm running v21.7.1 and I don't know if this is relevant or not.

[REQUIRED] Steps to reproduce

Follow the steps in the Install, configure and integrate Local Emulator Suite guide.

[REQUIRED] Expected behavior

Should be able to start the UI Emulator

[REQUIRED] Actual behavior

Unable to start the UI Emulator. Logs are included in the "Test case" section above.

[google-oss-bot]

This issue does not seem to follow the issue template. Make sure you provide all the required information.

[aalej]

Hey @rvahlin, thanks for reaching out. Sorry to hear you encountered this issue. I’m trying to reproduce this locally, but so far I haven’t encountered any issue with starting the emulators.

I’d like to recommend switching to an even version of Node.js(20.x.x) since those versions have long term support. After that, could you try deleting the contents of /Users/XXXXX/.cache/firebase/emulators, then run firebase emulators:start, which should re-install the emulator ui. Are there any changes in behavior after doing so?

Also, could you run node -v just to verify the Node.js version you’re running.

I used the following to try and reproduce this:

• firebase-tools: v13.6.0
• node: v20.10.0, v21.7.1, and v18.5.0
• platform: macOS Sonoma 14.4

[yannickfh]

i've experienced te same issue on:
firebase-tools: v13.6.0
node: v18.19.1
platform: macOS Sonoma 14.2.1

Switching my node version (back) to v18.19.0 i was able to start the emulator again.

[AndrejZelonka]

I've experienced the same issue (on a project where setup was already done)

Installing firebase-tools as a global npm package instead of automatic install script via curl helped.

[david7227]

I've experienced the same issue (on a project where setup was already done)

Installing firebase-tools as a global npm package instead of automatic install script via curl helped.

It worked for me, the problem seems to stem from the CLI installation.
Thanks alot.

[aalej]

Hey folks, thanks for the additional information. I tried to reproduce this issue again, and as mentioned in #6931 (comment), it seems like this issue occurs when firebase-tools is installed via the automatic install script. I’ll raise this issue to our engineering team.

[pedro-patriota]

I faced this same issue and, since I only needed the firebase emulators to be initialized, a partial solution I found was to remove the UI option in firebase init command or manually set UI enabled option to false.

[joehan]

Hey all, thanks for reporting this - a quick explanation of what's going on.

When installed via firebase.tools, the CLI comes bundled with node (so that you can run it without node installed on your machine beforehand). It looks like a recent release of the emulator UI added a require() of a ES module, which is incompatible with the bundled Node config.

Apologies for the inconvenience here - I'll take a crack a fixing this today. In the interim, installing firebase-tools through npm i firebase-tools -g or disabling the Emulator UI should avoid this issue.

[joehan]

Duplicates firebase/firebase-tools-ui#1014

[slack2450]

Make sure you remove firebase tools first through sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/firebase

[AbhijithBn]

This is just a suggestion for mac users. You can install firebase-cli using brew. That fixed this issue for me.

brew install firebase-cli

[Stf-F]

This is just a suggestion for mac users. You can install firebase-cli using brew. That fixed this issue for me.

Same here.
First tried to delete the cache located under/Users/XXXXX/.cache/firebase/emulators as per @aalej answer here, but no luck.
Ended up deleting firebase as mentioned by @slack2450 with sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/firebase and re-installing with brew install firebase-cli

[creotiv]

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/firebase

Thanks this was the issue