#community-help

Setup and Issues in Connecting Typesense Instance with Firebase Emulator

TLDR Michael.M seeks help on connecting a local Typesense instance to the Firebase local emulator. Jason suggests looking at emulator commands and creating a specific file. After various attempts and troubleshooting steps, Michael.M is able to establish the connection.

18mo

Join the chat

May 03, 2022 (18 months ago)

Photo of md5-0d6b77b41964b2e6a4e556e7d2ce9376

Michael.M

09:15 PM

Hello everyone, I’m brand new to Typesense. Working on an implementation for an application using React and Firebase. Most of the pieces of implementation make sense, however I’m struggling to understand how to connect a local Typesense instance to the Firebase local emulator for development.

This screenshot from the firestore-typesense-search docs is the only indication of using the emulator, but it doesn’t explain how Typesense will watch for changes to my emulator database (or is that even possible?). I am able to run the emulator, and I’m able to run a local copy of Typesense, but I’m not able to connect the two.

I understand that I could probably just make a bunch of cloud functions that watch the data, but I was hoping to get those “sync” updates automatically so I can maintain the same code between dev and production.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Photo of md5-8813087cccc512313602b6d9f9ece19f

Jason

09:26 PM

Michael.M Here's what that emulator command runs: https://github.com/typesense/firestore-typesense-search/blob/1b9d22bc1e3fbb55fd548003abbadcbf2be8a3fc/package.json#L5

09:26

Jason

09:26 PM

You want to create a file called test-params.env using this file as an example: https://github.com/typesense/firestore-typesense-search/blob/master/test-params.local.env

09:27

Jason

09:27 PM

This is what configures the extension within the emulator. No additional steps are required...

Michael.M

09:46 PM

Thank you so much. I appreciate that information. I’ll try this out now

10:08

Michael.M

10:08 PM

Unfortunately I’m running into an issue. When I run npm run emulator within firestore-typesense-search I receive an error that says: error: unknown option '--test-params' I have created a test-params.env and filled out the information. I’m unable to find any information about the --test-params option in the firebase CLI documentation. Here are the steps I took:

1. clone firestore-typesense-search
2. install npm packages
3. create test-params.env file and fill in information
4. run npm run emulator
Running the typesenseServer script worked perfectly.

Jason

10:27 PM

I think those flags are only enabled after running these two commands: https://github.com/typesense/firestore-typesense-search/blob/1b9d22bc1e3fbb55fd548003abbadcbf2be8a3fc/.circleci/config.yml#L13-L18

Could you install them and then try again?

Michael.M

10:30 PM

Ok, running those installs seemed to work. I think the second one was the missing piece for me.

10:31

Michael.M

10:31 PM

I’ll continue testing the initial suggestions you gave to see if everything is working.

May 04, 2022 (18 months ago)

Michael.M

08:35 PM

Hello Jason I appreciate all your help yesterday. I was able to get to a point where I can play around with the collections within the running Typesense server (using the extension locally). I also imported my own data through the --import=... option in the emulator script (instead of the default “books” data). However, even though my data is populating properly in the extension’s firestore instance, I am not able to retrieve it from the Typesense data store. I am running this code in a separate file:

//typesense-test.js

const Typesense = require('typesense')

async function main() {
  let client = new Typesense.Client({
    'nodes': [{
      'host': 'localhost',
      'port': '8108',
      'protocol': 'http'
    }],
    'apiKey': 'xyz',
    'connectionTimeoutSeconds': 2
  })

  const test = await client.collections().retrieve()
  console.log(test)
}

main()

And I receive [] in the console. I have set up the test-params.env correctly, but still nothing is populated.

I’m running both the extension emulator and the typesense server, and then I run the node typesense-test.js in a separate location.

Jason

08:38 PM

Michael.M The extension does not create the Typesense Collection for you. Instead it syncs data to a Typesense collection you've already created. So you'd need to create the collection first using the Typesense API (since you're using localhost)

08:39

Jason

08:39 PM

Also, I suspect that the import option in the emulator doesn't trigger the extension's functions. Could you instead try creating / updating Firestore documents via the emulator, once you've created the Typesense Collection?

Michael.M

08:39 PM

Ah I see. Yes I’ll try that

09:23

Michael.M

09:23 PM

Ahh finally figured out the problem. I had forgotten to install the extension cloud functions npm packages. Not the first time that has happened 😂

09:24

Michael.M

09:24 PM

I was able to log a document to the typesense data store

Jason

09:24 PM

Ahh! Awesome!

Michael.M

09:26 PM

I’m going to summarize the process for getting this setup, and I’ll try to put together an MR to update the README with more information

Typesense

Lightning-fast, open source search engine for everyone | Knowledge Base powered by Struct.AI

Indexed 2779 threads (79% resolved)

Join Our Community Manage subscription

Similar Threads

Setting up Typesense with Firestore Local Emulator

Isaac was struggling to run local emulator commands for Typesense with Firestore, Jason advised cloning the Github repository, running npm install and using Firebase-cli 10.x.

11mo

Syncing Firebase 'ref' Field with Typesense

Guillermo wanted to index a 'ref' field from firebase with typesense. Jason provided a solution which involved syncing `ref.path` as an addition to the existing fields. Guillermo confirmed the solution worked.

15mo

Troubleshooting 400 Error When Upgrading Typesense Firestore Extension

Orion experienced a `400` error after updating the Typesense Firestore extension, causing issues with cloud functions. They traced the issue back to a data type conflict in their Typesense collection schema after updating. With help from Jason and Kishore Nallan, they resolved the issue by recreating the collection.

12mo

Troubleshooting 409 Errors with Firestore to Typesense Cloud Function

Orion encounters 409 errors with `ext-firestore-typesense-search-indexToTypesenseOnFirestoreWrite` cloud function. Jason suggests possible solutions like querying Firestore on each change or tracking sync state in a collection. Both agreed on adding a config option. Orion proposed contributing a PR for the change.

7mo

Issues with Firebase Typesense Extension in Local Emulator

vajahath encountered issues with the Firebase Typesense Extension concerning host:port configuration and function timeout. Kishore Nallan clarified they should be separate, and Jason provided a guide to use the emulator with the extension.

17mo