TypeError: Cannot read property 'file' of null

Question

this is my controller file from which im trying to upload an image to the mongoDB

const bodyParser=require('body-parser');
const mongoose = require('mongoose');
const Resource = mongoose.model('Resource');
const upload = require('express-fileupload');
const path=require('path');

app.use(upload())
app.post('/fileupload',function(req,res){
        var resource = new Resource();
        console.log(req.files);

        var file=req.files.file;
        var filename=file.name;
        resource.name=filename;

        file.mv('./resourceFiles/'+filename);
        var fpath='./resourceFiles/'+filename;
        resource.filePath=fpath;
        resource.save((err)=>{
            if(!err){
                console.log("file record")
                res.redirect('ownerHome');
            }
            else{
                console.log("error during insertion:"+ err);
            }
        });
    })

It throws an error:

TypeError: Cannot read property 'file' of null at /Users/Nikhil/Documents/node/auction/Controllers/owner.js:73:28 at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/Users/Nikhil/Documents/node/auction/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5) at next (/Users/Nikhil/Documents/node/auction/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:137:13) at Route.dispatch (/Users/Nikhil/Documents/node/auction/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:112:3) at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/Users/Nikhil/Documents/node/auction/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5) at /Users/Nikhil/Documents/node/auction/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:281:22 at Function.process_params (/Users/Nikhil/Documents/node/auction/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:335:12) at next (/Users/Nikhil/Documents/node/auction/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:275:10) at Busboy. (/Users/Nikhil/Documents/node/auction/node_modules/express-fileupload/lib/processMultipart.js:130:41) at Busboy.emit (events.js:323:22) at Busboy.emit (/Users/Nikhil/Documents/node/auction/node_modules/busboy/lib/main.js:37:33) at /Users/Nikhil/Documents/node/auction/node_modules/busboy/lib/types/multipart.js:304:17 at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:79:11)

Following is my fileupload.ejs file:

<form method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">
    <br>Select file:<input type="file" name="file">
    <br><input type="submit" value="Upload">
  </form>

Your input name is file so you would need to access it via req.files.file, not req.files.filetoupload. There might be other issues but you might want to start there. — Jason Roman
I changed that however console.log(req.files) still returns null and the error remains the same. — nikfuzz

nikfuzz nikfuzz · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-18T18:04:13

Not sure what exactly the problem was but when i used the same code in server.js (entry file) instead of the controller the code worked seamlessly.

TypeError: Cannot read property 'file' of null

1 Answers