Mongoose not returning documents from existing connection

Question

I am trying to retrieve data from an existing mongodb collection but all I get is an empty array.

I am aware of the pluralization issue so I did specify the collection name in my model, but I'm still receiving an empty array. If I do the same bypassing mongoose and using the MongoClient I do get the results from my collection.

//This is my schema: **
const mongoose = require('mongoose');


// Create schema for nested object
const ownerSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    firstName: { type: String, required: true },
    lastName: { type: String, required: false }
})


// Create schema for cars collection
const carSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
    make: { type: String, required: true },
    model: { type: Number, required: true },
    owner: { type: ownerSchema, required: false },
    colour: { type: String, required: false },
    registration: { type: String, required: false },
    address: { type: String, required: false }
}, { collection: 'cars' })


let Cars = mongoose.model('Car', carSchema, 'cars');

module.exports = { Cars };

This is the logging to identify that an empty string is returned/same result when I use the endpoint I created on Postman:

Mongoose.connect(URL, clientOptions)
    .then(async () => {
        console.log('Connected to MongoDB');
        try {
            const cars = await Cars.find();
            console.log('Cars collection contents:', cars);
            if (cars.length === 0) {
                console.log('No cars found in the Cars collection.');
            }
        } catch (error) {
            console.error('Error checking Cars collection:', error);
        }
    })
    .catch((error) => console.error('Connection to database failed', error));

I always get the output "No cars found in Cars collection."

Instead of getting an empty array back, I should see the documents that are already in the collection.

Answer 1

Have you tried in mongosh?

1: use <your_database_name>

2: db.cars.find() || db.<collection_name>.find()

let us know this command's result please.

If this mongosh command returns the data, it might have a problem in your code.