I've picked up a project and I'm trying to return some data from a service to my controller. I've been at this for about 12 hours, and have tried different methods. They all usually result in this same kind of 'missing data'.
I've tried
$http.get right inside the controller without using promisesI feel what I have now is a simple as I can get it, and everything I've read says this should work
angularjs-load-data-from-service
angular-controller-cant-get-data-from-service
angularjs-promises-not-firing-when-returned-from-a-service
angularjs-promise-not-resolving-properly
angularjs-promise
These links were just from today.
I thought there might be a $scope issue, as in the past I've seen $scopes not get data when multiple controllers get used, however the site simply declares a controller in index.html as <body ng-app="myApp" ng-controller="BodyCtrl"> setup.  The main app.js uses states (from ui-router I believe) like so...
.state('app.view', {
    url: '/view',
    templateUrl: 'views/view.tpl.html',
    controller: 'MyCtrl'
   })
to attach controllers to the different pages. Also, the site has a few other controllers getting data from services, which I looked through first as a template, however, the data and returns are much more complicated there than what I'm trying to get at. Bottom line though, the controllers are accessing data provided from services. They're all using $resource, which is how I started with this issue. I've stuck with $http because it should work, and I'd like to get this working with that before I move onto something 'higher level'. Also, I only need to GET from the endpoints, so felt $resource was overkill.
service
.factory('MyService', ['$http', '$q', '$rootScope', function ($http, $q, $rootScope) {
    var defer = $q.defer();
    var factory = {};
    factory.all = function () {
        $http({method: 'GET', url: 'http://URLtoJSONEndpoint'}).
            success(function (data, status, headers, config) {
                console.log('data success', data);
                defer.resolve(data);
            }).
            error(function (data, status, headers, config) {
                console.log('data error');
                defer.reject(data);
            });
        return defer.promise;
    };
    return factory;
}]);
controller
.controller('MyCtrl', ['$scope', '$state', '$stateParams', '$rootScope', 'MyService', '$q', function ($scope, $state, $stateParams, $rootScope, MyService, $q) { 
...
...
$scope.data = null;
$scope.object = MyService;
$scope.promise = MyService.all();
MyService.all().then(function (data) {
    $scope.data = data;
    console.log("data in promise", $scope.data);
})
console.log("data", $scope.data);
console.log("object", $scope.object);
console.log("promise", $scope.promise);
$http({method: 'GET', url: 'http://URL'}).
        success(function (data, status, headers, config) {
            $scope.data = data;
            console.log('data success in ctrl', data);
        }).
        error(function (data, status, headers, config) {
            console.log('data error');
        });
    console.log("data after ctrl", $scope.data);
    angular.forEach($scope.data, function (item) {
        // stuff that I need $scope.data for
    }
console log
So this is my console log, and I can get at so much, just not the actual data!  Which is what I need.  I even got crazy and extended my .then(function (data) { to capture all the functions in the controller which need $scope.data.  That was a train wreck.
***data null***
object Object {all: function}
promise Object {then: function, catch: function, finally: function}
***data success after ctrl null***
data success in ctrl Array[143]
data success Array[143]
data in promise Array[143]
data success Array[143]
As far as I can tell, this should work, but I'm not sure where else the problem can be! Maybe I don't understand how promises work or resolve. I've used Angular before with another project, but I was there at it's start and understood how it was put together. This project was structured differently and feels much more chaotic. I'd like to simplify it, but I can't even seem to get some simple data to return!
I appreciate any help/feedback you can offer in identifying why this isn't working, thank you!
EDIT:  So the question is, why is console.log("data", $scope.data) coming back null/before the promise?
A bit further down in the controller I have this
angular.forEach($scope.data, function (item) {
// stuff
}
and it doesn't seem to have access to the data.
EDIT2:  I've added the $http.get I was using inside the controller, along with console logs for it and the actually forEach I need $scope.data for
EDIT3:
updated service
.service('MyService', ['$http', function ($http) {
    function all() {
        return $http({
            url: 'http://URL',
            method: 'GET'
        });
    }
    return {
        all: all
    }
}]);
updated controller
MyService.all().success(function (data) {
        $scope.data = data;
        angular.forEach($scope.data, function (item) {
            // Turn date value into timestamp, which is needed by NVD3 for mapping dates
            var visitDate = new Date(item.testDate).getTime();
            switch (item.Class) {
                case "TEST":
                    testData.push(
                        [
                            visitDate,
                            item.Total
                        ]
                    );
            }
        });
        console.log("test Data in success", testData);
    });
$scope.testData = [
        {
            "key": "Test",
            "values": testData
        }
    ];
So $scope.testData needs to be used in the view (nvd3 chart), and it's not getting the data.
SOLUTION
MyService.all().success(function (data) {
        $scope.data = data;
        angular.forEach($scope.data, function (item) {
            // Turn date value into timestamp, which is needed by NVD3 for mapping dates
            var visitDate = new Date(item.testDate).getTime();
            switch (item.Class) {
                case "TEST":
                    testData.push(
                        [
                            visitDate,
                            item.Total
                        ]
                    );
            }
        });
        console.log("test Data in success", testData);
        $scope.testData = [
        {
            "key": "Test",
            "values": testData
        }
    ];
    });
                This could be a very simple example of how your service could look like:
app.service('MyService', ['$http', function ($http) {
  function all() {
    return $http({
      url: 'data.json',
      method: 'GET'
    });
  }
  return {
    all: all
  }
}]);
In the controller you use it like so:
app.controller('AppCtrl', ['$scope', 'MyService', function ($scope, MyService) {
  $scope.data = null;
  MyService.all().success(function (data) {
    $scope.data = data;
    // init further handling of `.data` here.
  });
}]);
Demo: http://plnkr.co/edit/l8pF8Uaa312A8kPtaCNM?p=preview
To answer the question why the console logs data null: This is simply because the log happens before the async call finishes.
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