formidable: Use formidable upload files, always get "Error Request Aborted"

I just published formidable-serverless - it imports formidable as a dependency and modifies the handlers to support preprocessed request bodies (built-in to many serverless environments).

I’m using it in production with Firebase @BrodaNoel @brodwen83 @lborgman @nicholasstephan

The usage/API is exactly the same. Hope that helps.

I’m trying to use formidable in a firebase function, and am getting this error for every request.

try to delete this in your app.js.
app.use(express.bodyParser());
I have sovled this proplem.

Getting rid of the app.use(bodyParser.json()); helped.

@programmerpinggiran from your logs it seems like the error is coming from elsewhere.

While the aborted event is captured at formidable-serverless/lib/index.js:102:19:

req.on('aborted', function () {
    self.emit('aborted');
    self._error(new Error('Request aborted'));
});

The event is emitted elsewhere: ... events.js:180:13 ... domain.js:422:20 ... _http_server.js:441:9 etc.

Check those files (file:line:col) Never mind those are node’s files.

You’re using PM2 so I’m assuming you’re not in a serverless environment. Will need more information:

• Are you getting this error repeatedly? Request abort can be caused by some normal circumstances (client disconnects).
• Which request (on the client side) is causing the error? If it’s a large request make sure you have configured appropriately large request size limits.
• Are you also using body-parser?

@tunnckoCore error still exist

 Error: Request aborted
    at IncomingMessage.<anonymous> (/root/server/node_modules/formidable-serverless/lib/index.js:102:19)
    at IncomingMessage.emit (events.js:180:13)
    at IncomingMessage.emit (domain.js:422:20)
    at abortIncoming (_http_server.js:441:9)
    at socketOnClose (_http_server.js:435:3)
    at Socket.emit (events.js:185:15)
    at Socket.emit (domain.js:422:20)
    at TCP._handle.close [as _onclose] (net.js:541:12)

It is the client that is aborting, not the server. It’s an error you can always get and which you must handle. It’s not a bug in formidable.

• Use recent version of Node to have nice default settings.
• Use maxFileSize: 3 * 10 ** 9 option, to receive 3GB files and less
• Do not use bodyParser and formidable, only use formidable
• abort error can and will happen when a clients loses internet or navigates to another page
• listen for error events to avoid abort error to crash the server, example:

const server = http.createServer((request, response) => {
    request.on(`error`, console.error.bind(console, `request error`));
    response.on(`error`, console.error.bind(console, `response error`));

@spade69: just remove it

what you removed? Koa2 or Formidable@canary? Do you mean that the problem continue even with formidable@canary and latest koa2?

I’m going to publish v2 on 29th or 1st, so… We may continue after that if it’s still a problem.

sorry, i mean removing koa-body’s bodyParser, i use formiable@1.2.2 and latest koa2. Now everything works, thx

@programmerpinggiran there’s a lot going on there… have you tried unit testing the API endpoint? Once you know the specific fail cases it’ll be easier to debug.

While formidable-serverless should be fine alongside body-parser, if you’re not in a serverless environment I would separate body-parser from formidable. This is because body-parser can emit its own errors and make it difficult to debug in the mixup, and the double parsing can be an unnecessary performance drag. You can do this by providing body-parser as middleware to only the API endpoints that need it (excluding the endpoint that uses formidable).

The @Amit-A 's formidable-serverless package worked nicely for me in firebase cloud functions. No code changes was needed, just import the package where formidable was required.

@tunnckoCore that could be a nice way of doing it, but I wonder about versioning risk… if there’s a breaking change in formidable, and we pass the new formidable to the function, it could return a broken parse method vs. the current implementation: importing formidable, enforcing the version in package.json, then exporting it.

to disable body-parser for multipart/form-data in your router

exmple solution of nodejs

app.use(express.json()).use(express.urlencoded())

@Amit-A Thx, that really helped

@Amit-A thanks, this is a great library.

• yes im usign pm2, from “formidalble” version it show error randomly. and “formidable-serverless” it show error once, started script 11 hours ago, about 100-300 user use my app today.
• I have Node js running as API for android client to upload profile image. our client image size is about 50-500kb

app.post('/v2/api/oururlpath', function(request, res) {
    var form = new formidable.IncomingForm();
    var email;
    form.keepExtensions = true;
    form.multiples = true;
    files = [],
        fields = [];
    form.uploadDir = '../../var/www/html/uploads/';
    form.on('field', function(field, value) {
        fields.push([field, value]);
        console.log(field + " val " + value);
        email = value;
    })
    form.on('file', function(field, file) {
        var oldpath = file.path;
        var newpath = "../../var/www/html/uploads/" + file.name;
        var file_path = "http://domain:port/urlpath?img=" + file.name;
        mv(oldpath, newpath, function(err) {
            if (err) {
                console.log("Foto error " + err);
                throw err;
            } else {
                var fotoupdate1;
                if (file.name.indexOf("profile1") > -1) {
                    fotoupdate1 = {
                        email: email,
                        foto1: file_path,
                    };
                } else if (file.name.indexOf("profile2") > -1) {
                    fotoupdate1 = {
                        email: email,
                        foto2: file_path,
                    };
                } else if (file.name.indexOf("profile3") > -1) {
                    fotoupdate1 = {
                        email: email,
                        foto3: file_path,
                    };
                } else if (file.name.indexOf("profile4") > -1) {
                    fotoupdate1 = {
                        email: email,
                        foto4: file_path,
                    };
                } else if (file.name.indexOf("profile5") > -1) {
                    fotoupdate1 = {
                        email: email,
                        foto5: file_path,
                    };
                } else if (file.name.indexOf("profile6") > -1) {
                    fotoupdate1 = {
                        email: email,
                        foto6: file_path,
                    };
                }
                //fotoupdate1 is for sql stuff
            }

        });

        // console.log("--------------- END ---------------");

    })

    form.on('end', function() {
        console.log('done upload photo');
        return res.json({
            success: true,
            status: "1",
            hasil: "file uploaded successfully",
        });

    });
    form.parse(request);
});

• yes im using body parser

const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
    app.use(bodyParser.json({
        limit: '50mb'
    }));
    app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({
        limit: '50mb',
        extended: true
    }));

our android client using okhttp

public String uploadImage(String email,String url) {
);
        OkHttpClient httpClient = new OkHttpClient();
        MultipartBody.Builder requestBody = new MultipartBody.Builder()
                .setType(MultipartBody.FORM)
                .addFormDataPart("email", session.getEmailuser());

        if (filefoto1 != null) {
            requestBody.addFormDataPart("foto1", email + "_profile1.png",
                    RequestBody.create(MEDIA_TYPE_PNG, new File(filefoto1.getPath())));
        }

        if (filefoto2 != null) {
            requestBody.addFormDataPart("foto2", email + "_profile2.png",
                    RequestBody.create(MEDIA_TYPE_PNG, new File(filefoto2.getPath())));
        }

        if (filefoto3 != null) {
            requestBody.addFormDataPart("foto3", email + "_profile3.png",
                    RequestBody.create(MEDIA_TYPE_PNG, new File(filefoto3.getPath())));
        }

        if (filefoto4 != null) {
            requestBody.addFormDataPart("foto4", email + "_profile4.png",
                    RequestBody.create(MEDIA_TYPE_PNG, new File(filefoto4.getPath())));
        }

        if (filefoto5 != null) {
            requestBody.addFormDataPart("foto5", email + "_profile5.png",
                    RequestBody.create(MEDIA_TYPE_PNG, new File(filefoto5.getPath())));
        }

        if (filefoto6 != null) {
            requestBody.addFormDataPart("foto6", email + "_profile6.png",
                    RequestBody.create(MEDIA_TYPE_PNG, new File(filefoto6.getPath())));
        }

        RequestBody req = requestBody.build();

        final Request request = new Request.Builder()
                .url(url)
                .post(req)
                .build();
        Response response = null;
        try {
            response = httpClient.newCall(request).execute();
            return response.body().string();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            return null;
        }
    }

@tunnckoCore ill try it and report here after few days later thanks anyway

I have problem, i have nodejs api retreive upload from android phone… This error show randomly… Sometimes succed, and some time error showing

One way to solve it is to using a GET request instead and disguise it as a POST or PUT by sending params. For example, on the front end side, via angular it would be: $http.get(‘/fetchComments’, {params: payLoadObj}).then…

And to retrieve it from your server file: req.query

I’ve seen this problem when using some php server along with the express stuff (nginx with fpm module as reverse proxy, for say). In that case I got rid of the php-fpm module and got lucky: my files started to upload. Looking at the nginx logs I discovered that the connection was being reset for whatever reason I don’t know. Now I’m getting the same issue on another server where some guy installed apache and vstfptd. Before that, everything was working like a charm.

I would try to narrow the problem down (also talking to myself on this point) to see what is exactly the problem here.

Any ideas on how to trace the problem in an e2e fashion?

edit: using express 4.16.2 and express-formidable 1.0.0

+1 Removing the express bodyparser didn’t helped either