Error : Agent is not a constructor while using 54.0.0

[akp111]

Version: 53.0.1 and 54.0.0

Platform: Linux

Severity: High Severity

Issue:
A few days back IPFS on the server end started throwing the following error
Agent is not a constructor
I was getting this error while initializing the ipfs instance.

 try {
      ipfs = await create('/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/5001');
    }
    catch (err) {
      Logger.error(err)
}

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[jdeepee]

I am also getting the error on the latest version 0.60.0

[vinkabuki]

Same for me on 53.0.1 and 54.0.0

[StrawberryChocolateFudge]

same for me on the latest ^54.0.1 and 53.0.1
downgraded to 52.0.5 and that works so the problem was introduced after.

[achingbrain]

What version of node are you running?

[StrawberryChocolateFudge]

@achingbrain
I'm on v16.13.0 Active LTS

[EmiM]

Node v14.15.5
ipfs@0.59.1

For me this error occurs probably because default Agent is now taken from agent.browser.js instead of agent.js (ipfs-http-client) resulting in Agent being undefined.

[achingbrain]

I'm having trouble replicating this, can you tell me a bit more about your setup please, supply a stack trace and preferably provide a repro case that shows the error?

You say "IPFS on the server end" but await create('/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/5001') looks more like you're trying to create an instance of the http client?

default Agent is now taken from agent.browser.js instead of agent.js

The file the Agent class is loaded from is controlled by the exports map in ipfs-core-utils/package.json with "browser" returning nothing and "import"/"require" returning http.Agent or https.Agent depending on the URL being used.

It's also loaded by the /agent file in the published tarball, but that file is only there for compatibility with tools that use resolve like jest and browserify and should be ignored by any node.js that supports the exports map.

Agent itself is only instantiated if the environment is node.js

If you're getting the "browser" export in node.js there must be something about your project/env that's triggering this as it's not intended or documented behaviour.

[EmiM]

Thank you for the response.

That's what I suspected (the problem being our project) however it was working for us before.
The error appeared when I upgraded ipfs from 0.52.3 to 0.59.1 (along with upgrading orbitdb to 0.28.0 and all its dependencies).
I use jest for testing and have testEnvironment set to 'node'.

I printed the env_js and default agent in ipfs-http-client core.js to see what's going on:

console.log
    ipfs-core -> ipfs-http-client -> lib.core.js. Env: {
      isTest: true,
      isElectron: false,
      isElectronMain: false,
      isElectronRenderer: false,
      isNode: true,
      isBrowser: false,
      isWebWorker: false,
      isEnvWithDom: false,
      isReactNative: false
    }

      at normalizeOptions (node_modules/ipfs-core/node_modules/ipfs-http-client/cjs/src/lib/core.js:53:11)

  console.log
    ipfs-core -> ipfs-http-client -> lib.core.js. getAgent__default: { default: [Function: agent_browser] }

It looks like it knows that it's a node env but still reaches for agent.browser.js?

[achingbrain]

Can you please share a link to your project or a repro repo with instructions on how to replicate this issue?