MongoDB / MongoLab Remove request works locally but deletes database when live

Question

The following is using nodejs, expressjs, mongodb. On the live site it is using mongolab. I am making a POST request from the front end to the server, and the server handles the request by deleting a single matching record from the database. The server work (done in ExpressJS is as follows:

var removeStuff = req.body.removeStuff;
var currentId = req.user._id;
var currentEmail = req.user.email;

myStuff.findOne({
  $and: [
      { $or: [{stuff: removeStuff}] },
      { $or: [{apid:currentId},{apiemail:currentEmail}] }
  ]
}, function (err, currentStuff) {
  currentStuff.remove();
  res.send('Stuff was removed from database...')
});

What's really strange is that this works perfectly for the site when I'm running it on localhost. But when it's live, making the request removes ALL records from the database.

That's not possible unless it's a bug with mongoose. There must be code elsewhere that is the offending code. You're calling `.remove()` on the document which has no impact on the collection. — chrisbajorin, Oct 14 '15 at 18:58
Hmmm I've been looking all over for bugs...again it works perfectly on the localhost, so maybe it could be with mongoose? I saw that previously there was a bug of this sort but it was in 2013 https://github.com/Automattic/mongoose/issues/1649 — maudulus, Oct 14 '15 at 19:09
`.remove()` calls `collection.remove(obj)` where `obj` is the entire document you are calling it on. So the only possible match is itself(since it includes it's id). take a look at what it does [here](https://github.com/Automattic/mongoose/blob/master/lib/model.js#L637-L686) for the call itself, and [here](https://github.com/Automattic/mongoose/blob/master/lib/model.js#L585-L609) for an explanation of what it uses as a match. (check which version you are using as well) — chrisbajorin, Oct 14 '15 at 20:05

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:07

Ok, I got it. I'm not sure exactly why the original doesn't work, but I found that in this StackOverflow question someone answered a similar question. What they did was along the lines of:

var removeStuff = req.body.removeStuff;
var currentId = req.user._id;
var currentEmail = req.user.email;

myStuff.findOneAndRemove({
  $and: [
      { $or: [{stuff: removeStuff}] },
      { $or: [{apid:currentId},{apiemail:currentEmail}] }
  ]
}, function (err) {
  res.status(200).send("it worked...");
});

MongoDB / MongoLab Remove request works locally but deletes database when live

1 Answers1