Express Route 404

Question

I'm having trouble with my node.js express routes. I'm really new to it and I can't see my mistake. I'm always getting a 404 Error when requesting localhost:2700/api/subs, but I think that my route is correct, isn't it? Can anybody see a mistake?

Beginning of the Error Message:

Error: Not Found
at ****/app.js:45:13
at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (****/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5)

Here is the app.js

var express = require('express');
var path = require('path');
var favicon = require('serve-favicon');
var logger = require('morgan');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');

const mongoose = require('mongoose');

// establish connection to the Database
mongoose.connect('mongodb://localhost/test', {
  useMongoClient: true
});

mongoose.connection.once('open', function() {
  console.log('Connection to Database has been established..');
}).on('error', function(error){
  console.log(error);
});


var index = require('./routes/index');
var users = require('./routes/users');
Subscriber = require('./routes/subscriber.js');

var app = express();

// view engine setup
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'));
app.set('view engine', 'jade');

// uncomment after placing your favicon in /public
//app.use(favicon(path.join(__dirname, 'public', 'favicon.ico')));
app.use(logger('dev'));
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));

app.use('/', index);
app.use('/users', users);

// catch 404 and forward to error handler
app.use(function(req, res, next) {
var err = new Error('Not Found');
err.status = 404;
next(err);
});

// error handler
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
  // set locals, only providing error in development
  res.locals.message = err.message;
  res.locals.error = req.app.get('env') === 'development' ? err : {};

  // render the error page
  res.status(err.status || 500);
  res.render('error');
});

app.get('/api/subs', function(req, res){
    Subscriber.getSubscribers(function(err, subscribers){
        if(err){
            throw err;
        }
        res.json(subscribers);
    });
});

// ... here is a function which creates the database objects and saves         
//       them. took it out for better overview....

app.listen(2700, function(){
  console.log("Listening on Port 2700")
});

module.exports = app;

and the subscriber.js which is in the subdirectory ./routes:

const mongoose = require('mongoose');

var subscriberSchema = mongoose.Schema({
    //seqnr shall go here. dunno how to declare integer x)
    nr: Number,
    name: String,
    email: String,
    uLink: String,
    anwalt: String
});

var Subscriber = module.exports = mongoose.model('Subscriber', subscriberSchema);

//get Subscriber
module.exports.getSubscribers = function(callback, limit){
    Subscriber.find(callback).limit(limit);
};

index.js

var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();

/* GET home page. */ 
router.get('/', function(req, res, next) {
  res.render('index', { title: 'Express' });
});

module.exports = router;

Answer 1

Try putting it in a separate file and including it where you do with other routes, before the 404 handler

app.use('/', index);
app.use('/users', users);

So... make a subs.js route

var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
Subscriber = require('./routes/subscriber.js');

router.get('/', function(req, res){
    Subscriber.getSubscribers(function(err, subscribers){
        if(err){
            throw err;
        }
        res.json(subscribers);
    });
});

module.exports = router;

Then include it in your app.js

var subs= require('./routes/subs');
...
api.use('/api/subs', subs);
...
app.use(function(req, res, next) {
var err = new Error('Not Found');
err.status = 404;
next(err);
});

Answer 2

You need to put your 404 app.use after all the other uses, otherwise it will ignore the api/subs after it.

Also, this bit will never run, because it also comes after an api.use that will always throw an error:

// error handler
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
  // set locals, only providing error in development
  res.locals.message = err.message;
  res.locals.error = req.app.get('env') === 'development' ? err : {};

  // render the error page
  res.status(err.status || 500);
  res.render('error');
});

Plus, you really shouldn't be throwing errors for 404s. It should tell the end user the page doesn't exist, but it shouldn't crash your script.

Also I agree with the other answer that says you should move those code blocks into separate router files, but that's more for good practice and structuring than for this particular bug.