Cant access Firestore documents from PHP scripts with API key

Question

I am new to Firebase/Firestore. I have created 2 projects that access the same data in Firestore. One is in android and the other a web app in php. I am able to access data in android app but in PHP app i had to create an API key in the credentials page. I want to use Firestore on trial basis initially but am not able to access the documents . It gives an error

Fatal error: Uncaught RuntimeException: Credentials fetcher does not implement Google\Auth\UpdateMetadataInterface in C:\xampp\htdocs\FirestoreProject\vendor\google\auth\src\FetchAuthTokenCache.php:190 Stack trace: #0 C:\xampp\htdocs\FirestoreProject\vendor\google\gax\src\CredentialsWrapper.php(197): Google\Auth\FetchAuthTokenCache->updateMetadata(Array, 'https://firesto...') #1 [internal function]: Google\ApiCore\CredentialsWrapper->Google\ApiCore{closure}(Object(stdClass)) #2 C:\xampp\htdocs\FirestoreProject\vendor\grpc\grpc\src\lib\ServerStreamingCall.php(44): Grpc\Call->startBatch(Array) #3 C:\xampp\htdocs\FirestoreProject\vendor\grpc\grpc\src\lib\BaseStub.php(364): Grpc\ServerStreamingCall->start(Object(Google\Cloud\Firestore\V1\BatchGetDocumentsRequest), Array, Array) #4 C:\xampp\htdocs\FirestoreProject\vendor\grpc\grpc\src\lib\BaseStub.php(589): Grpc\BaseStub->Grpc{closure}('/google.firesto...', Object(Google\Cloud\Firestore\V1\BatchGetDocumentsRequest), Array, Array, Array) #5 C:\xampp\htdocs\FirestoreProject\ve in C:\xampp\htdocs\FirestoreProject\vendor\google\auth\src\FetchAuthTokenCache.php on line 190

I have installed composer and updated the dependencies and gRPC.

My index.php file reads

<?php
    session_start();
    require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';
    require_once "Firestore.php";
    
    
    $apiKey = 'WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW';
    
    
    $url ='https://console.firebase.google.com/project/prject-ID/firestore? 
    key=Aasdads';
    $fs = new Firestore('Users');
    print_r($fs->getDocument('9427349073'));
    
    return;
?>

My Firestore.php file reads

<?php

    use Google\Cloud\Core\Exception\GoogleException;
    use Google\Cloud\Firestore\FirestoreClient;
    
    class Firestore
    {
    
        protected $db;
        protected $name;   // $name is name of collection
    
        public function __construct(string $collection) // $collection = 
                                                        //  'Users'
        {
            if (isset($this)) {
    
                try {
                    $this->db = new FirestoreClient([
                    'projectId' => 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX'
                    ]);
     
                    $this->name = $collection;
    
                } catch (GoogleException $e) {
                    print_r($e->getMessage());
                }
    
            }else{
    
    
            }


    }


    public function getDocument(string $name)  // $name is name of document 
    {
        return  $this->db->collection($this->name)->document($name)- 
        >snapshot()->data();

    }

}


?>

I tried activating the Credentials Page but they are asking for Credit card for billing to start trial , which i dont have. Cant we test the database without activating the Credentials? What is the difference between testing and trial basis usage ?

Please help

regards

Sanjish

I have made a test.php file after creating a service account and pointing to the key.json file on command prompt using set GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS

<?php

    require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';
    
    session_start();
    
    use Google\Cloud\Firestore\FirestoreClient;
  
     initialize();
    
    
    function initialize()
    {
        // Create the Cloud Firestore client
    
        $db = new FirestoreClient([
            'projectId' => 'Valbhai-xxx'
        ]);
    
      
        $usersRef = $db->collection('Users'); // This works
        $snapshot = $usersRef->documents();   // This does not work , gives 
                                              // the same error
    
        foreach ($snapshot as $user) {
    
            printf('User: %s' . PHP_EOL, $user->client_name());
        }
    
    }

?>

Hi have you defined your credentials as is mentioned in the PHP firestore quickstart, PHP is a backend software and it is necessary to use the service account credentials to use Firestore — Jan Hernandez
I followed your advice Jan , and created a service account .It worked. Thanks a lot — SANJISH KUMAR
It worked partially . $usersRef = $db->collection('Users'); -> This works but $doc = $usersRef->documents(); gives the same error — SANJISH KUMAR
Can you update the code in your question to understand what works and what doesn't? — Jan Hernandez

Jan Hernandez Jan Hernandez · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-15T15:53:18

I reproduced your issue on my computer and I noticed that this is because PHP is ignoring the environment variable GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS, because this is not defined for the user Apache(or httpd) in order to fix this I modified the initialization by using this code block


$db = new FirestoreClient([
            'keyFilePath' => '/path/to/credentials.json',
            'projectId' => 'my-project-id'
        ]);

With keyFilePath (this parameter is documented here), Firestore library going to search the GCP credentials using the string of the path instead the environment variable

Cant access Firestore documents from PHP scripts with API key

1 Answers