Could not load the default credentials? (Node.js Google Compute Engine tutorial)

Question

SITUATION:

I follow this tutorial: https://cloud.google.com/nodejs/tutorials/bookshelf-on-compute-engine

Everything works fine until I do

Answer 1

Although this question has been answered multiple times, I found myself in a situation not explained here.

After I created the variable: $GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS, I was getting the same error as Coder1000.

However, I was running both: nodemon and: npm run dev in two separate sessions in Terminal, neither of which were aware of the variable.

Once I: shut the tabs down; added new tabs; and ran the commands again, the application was able to access the variable.