Switching from Localhost MongoDB, to deploying on Heroku with MongoLab - mongodb

Question

I'v build an app on my local machine using MongoDB, and this is fully working locally. But once I deploy it to Heroku I cannot connect to the DB or retrieve anything from the REST service. I'v read the docs many time and noticed they need to be updated in many places which is throwing me off. Here is my initialize code:
Any help or suggestions much appreciated.
"use strict";
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");
var server = express();
server.set("port", (process.env.PORT || 5000));
server.use(express.static(__dirname + "/public"));
server.listen(server.get("port"), function() {
console.log("Node server is running at localhost:" + server.get("port"));
});
var router = express.Router();
/* GET home page. */
router.get("public", function(req, res) {
res.render("index", { title: "MyApp" });
});
module.exports = router;
// **** LocalDB: "mongodb://localhost:27017/myapp" ****
var mongo = require("mongoskin");
var db = mongo.db("mongodb://xxxxxx:xxxxxx#ds045511.mongolab.com:45511/xxxxxx", {native_parser:true});
var routes = require("./routes/index");
var users = require("./routes/users");
var divesites = require("./routes/myCollection");
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(__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")));
// Make our db accessible to our router
app.use(function(req,res,next){
req.db = db;
next();
});
app.use("/", routes);
app.use("/users", users);
app.use("/myCollection", myCollection);
// 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 handlers
// development error handler
// will print stacktrace
if (app.get("env") === "development") {
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
res.status(err.status || 500);
res.render("error", {
message: err.message,
error: err
});
});
}
// production error handler
// no stacktraces leaked to user
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
res.status(err.status || 500);
res.render("error", {
message: err.message,
error: {}
});
});
module.exports = app;

Answer 1

You could use the environment variable process.env.MONGOLAB_URI instead and see how that goes:
var mongo = require("mongoskin");
var db = mongo.db(process.env.MONGOLAB_URI, {native_parser:true});