FirebaseError: Failed to load environment variables from .env

Question

I am using Firebase to run the backend for my application. When I try to run the backend using firebase emulators:start --inspect-functions it says

Node v: 18.13.0
Firebase-tools v: ^11.18.0
Firebase-functions v: ^4.2.0

i  emulators: Starting emulators: auth, functions, storage
⚠  functions: You are running the Functions emulator in debug mode (port=9229). This means that functions will execute in sequence rather than in parallel.
⚠  functions: The following emulators are not running, calls to these services from the Functions emulator will affect production: firestore, database, hosting, pubsub
⚠  functions: Unable to fetch project Admin SDK configuration, Admin SDK behavior in Cloud Functions emulator may be incorrect.
i  ui: Emulator UI logging to ui-debug.log
i  functions: Watching "/home/ktk/code/js/sol/functions/functions" for Cloud Functions...
⚠  functions: package.json indicates an outdated version of firebase-functions. Please upgrade using npm install --save firebase-functions@latest in your functions directory.
✔  functions: Using node@18 from host.
⬢  functions: Failed to load function definition from source: FirebaseError: Failed to load environment variables from .env.

Things I've checked:

• the .env does exist
• the .env syntax is correct
• executed chmod 777 .env to change the permissions

Answer 1

The problem here could be that you are using reserved firebase names for your environment variable keys.You can take a look to the Firebase Config Env documentation.

Any key that starts with the word FIREBASE is reserved.

I had the same problem, and I could solve it by changing the name of my env variables.

I hope that helps. Good luck! :)

Answer 2

I was using the "PORT" key in my .env file. This key is in the list of reserved Firebase keys.

Really wish the error message was more helpful.