Mongoexport returning 0 records

[Bonnie_Owens]

Hello! I am trying to export a large collection named ‘questions’ from a database named ‘sc_data’ on my localhost. I have created a json file named questions.json in a folder named db_transfer on my desktop for storage. I have the latest version of mongodb_database_tools and mongodb-community version 5.0.4 installed on my machine.

I am running this command in my terminal:
mongoexport --collection questions --db sc_data --out /Users/bonnieowens/desktop/db_transfer/questions.json

and getting this response:
connected to: mongodb://localhost/
exported 0 records

I can see in Compass that I have that db in localhost and I have that collection in the db, and it is not empty.

I have tried specifying the port (–port 27017) and using the syntax in the docs (–db=sc_data). I am sure that it’s a simple error, but I can’t find it.

Thanks for your help!

[Ramachandra_Tummala]

Why create questions.json?
You have to give just the name of your output file.
Please show full log

[Bonnie_Owens]

Just to have it go to that very specific place. I have also tried the command without a specified --out value, but it still doesn’t work.

[Bonnie_Owens]

[Bonnie_Owens]

[MaBeuLux88 (Maxime Beugnet)]

Hi,

Can you repeat that to see if that works for you?

polux@hafx:/tmp$ cat questions.json 
{"name":"max"}
polux@hafx:/tmp$ mongoimport --db test --collection test --file questions.json 
2022-03-02T17:21:18.882+0100	connected to: mongodb://localhost/
2022-03-02T17:21:18.932+0100	1 document(s) imported successfully. 0 document(s) failed to import.
polux@hafx:/tmp$ mongoexport --db test --collection test --out test.json 
2022-03-02T17:21:24.732+0100	connected to: mongodb://localhost/
2022-03-02T17:21:24.736+0100	exported 1 record
polux@hafx:/tmp$ cat test.json 
{"_id":{"$oid":"621f997e1722e2a444399193"},"name":"max"}

Cheers,
Maxime.

[Bonnie_Owens]

That works! Any idea why my other cmd is not working? Thanks!

[MaBeuLux88 (Maxime Beugnet)]

collection and db not in the right order? Pointing to the wrong collection? It must be something really silly !

[Bonnie_Owens]

I’m not entirely sure why, but restarting my computer and then restarting mongodb-community that I had running in the background fixed this issue. I thought I would share in case someone else experiences the same issue.

[MaBeuLux88 (Maxime Beugnet)]

Happy it’s fixed now !

Cheers!
Maxime.