[Bug]: Example of upload file via Node is not working

[brunomateus]

Link to the documentation page or resource

https://docs.strapi.io/developer-docs/latest/plugins/upload.html#upload-files

Describe the bug

The sample of Node.Js code showed on that page is not working. It's always give you HTTP 400 and this messages "message":"Files are empty".

I spent long hours trying, then I decide to write something similar in Python and that's it, it worked at the first time.

Additional context

No response

Suggested improvements or fixes

I am not sure what is the current bug, it seems that form.append('files', file) is not working, but we need to fix that.

Also, I do believe that an example of code using entity or service API would be a great help. This is really useful when we need do populate a database.

Related issue(s)/PR(s)

No response

[harris2310]

Hello there, I could resolve this issue for you!

[pwizla]

Hello @brunomateus, and thank you for opening this issue. I'm sorry you are having trouble. Our team is indeed currently reworking the Upload documentation as it's not up-to-date with Strapi v4.

That's so nice of you to offer some help @harris2310! ❤️ We really appreciate it!

I'm assigning @StrapiShaun to this issue as he's in charge of the rewrite for this documentation, and I'll let him get in touch with you to solve this issue together. Thank you again!

Edit: @gpene is actually the technical writer working on Upload docs, re-assigning the issue :-)

[gpene]

@brunomateus Looks like this may have been addressed already just a few days after you reported the issue, if you could give it another go and confirm: https://github.com/strapi/documentation/pull/908/files
Thanks!

[brunomateus]

Hi everyone, sorry for the late reply.
I just tried again and it worked fortunately. Great job!

I have just few notes:

• First I tried using a Node + Typescript (I prefer ts than js) project and I could not make it work because I was targeting commonjs and I had problems to import blobFrom.
• I put type: module in my package.json and changed from module: commonjs to module: esnext in my tsconfig.json, but I got other errors.
• I gave up of using Ts and I still had problem because I was using localhost, I got connection refused until I changed to 127.0.0.1.

[gpene]

Thanks for the additional notes @brunomateus - will keep those in mind as we revise the current documentation.
As the original problem reported here is resolved will close this issue - thanks again!

[nagman]

Hi there,
The issue is still not solved as I have exactly the same: I'm using TS and blobFrom can't be used.

As I really need typescript for this project, I'm stuck. I've tried also sending a file like this:

import { FormDataEncoder } from "form-data-encoder";
import { FormData } from "formdata-node";
import { fileFromPath } from "formdata-node/file-from-path";
import fetch from "node-fetch";
import { join } from "path";
import { Readable } from "stream";

// ...

export async function upload() {
  // ...

  const path2img = join(__dirname, "uploads", image.src);

  const file = await fileFromPath(path2img);
  const form = new FormData();
  form.set("files", file);
  const encoder = new FormDataEncoder(form);

  const response = await fetch("http://127.0.0.1:1337/upload", {
    method: "POST",
    body: Readable.from(encoder),
    headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.STRAPI_API_TOKEN}` },
  });

  // ...
}

And I'm getting a 400 error: Files are empty.

I've checked my file and it does exists, with the correct filesize in bytes, yet Strapi seems to ignore it.

It's been hours I'm stuck with this and none of the solutions I've found on internet seem to work :'(

[nagman]

@gpene could you reopen this thread please? The issue has never been solved.
There actually is no working example of how to upload a file through node.js with strapi.
I'm struggling for hours, I tried many things, none of them work. I always get a "Files are empty".

But when intercepting the request with mitmproxy, I can see the octet-stream of my file under the name "files".

[pwizla]

Hi @nagman. "gpene" is not working for Strapi anymore. I'll check with Strapi engineers what we can do for this one.

[pwizla]

Hi,
Thanks again for reporting. I'm closing this issue for now, but it's included in the meta issue for the Upload plugin (#1948). More details in the linked issue :)

[nagman]

I managed to fix it by:

• installing fix-esm
• installing node-fetch@^3.3.2
• importing node-fetch like this: const fetch = require("fix-esm").require("node-fetch");