# Worker error with .mul is not a function

**URL:** <https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573>\
**Category:** Community Support\
**Tags:** typescript-sdk\
**Created:** [August 4, 2022, 3:48am UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573 "2022-08-04T03:48:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rifruf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/rifruf/32/2121_2.png) [@rifruf](https://community.temporal.io/u/rifruf)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2022, 3:48am UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/1 "2022-08-04T03:48:46Z")

</div>

Have a workflow that executes properly with local workers. When trying to do this in my production cluster with deployed workers, I’m getting the following error, does anyone have any ideas on what could be happening

```auto
2022-08-04T03:32:56.766Z [ERROR] Failed to activate workflow {
  runId: 'b2fd073b-42a6-40ce-b719-1468474d7f2c',
  error: TypeError: (seconds || long_1.default.UZERO).mul is not a function
      at tsToMs (/opt/app-root/src/.yarn/cache/@temporalio-internal-workflow-common-npm-1.0.0-rc.1-b66f54d7d6-4272b669aa.zip/node_modules/@temporalio/internal-workflow-common/lib/time.js:30:10)
      at /opt/app-root/src/.yarn/cache/@temporalio-worker-npm-1.0.0-rc.1-2998f0d7a7-147819cf17.zip/node_modules/@temporalio/worker/lib/worker.js:664:90
      at async /opt/app-root/src/.yarn/cache/@temporalio-worker-npm-1.0.0-rc.1-2998f0d7a7-147819cf17.zip/node_modules/@temporalio/worker/lib/tracing.js:65:20
      at async /opt/app-root/src/.yarn/cache/@temporalio-worker-npm-1.0.0-rc.1-2998f0d7a7-147819cf17.zip/node_modules/@temporalio/worker/lib/worker.js:593:28,
  workflowExists: false
}

```

Seems like some type of dependency that should exist doesn’t exist here?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![loren](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/loren/32/5099_2.png) [@loren](https://community.temporal.io/u/loren)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2022, 4:39am UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/2 "2022-08-04T04:39:41Z")

</div>

I recommend getting all `@temporalio/*` packages to the latest version:

`yarn add @temporalio/client@latest @temporalio/worker@latest @temporalio/workflow@latest @temporalio/activity@latest`

Here are the only breaking changes between your current version and latest:

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/temporal/original/2X/9/946d2b1347e36bcf433964bea4c54cbd4dde1c68.png)

> <https://github.com/temporalio/sdk-typescript/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md>

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rifruf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/rifruf/32/2121_2.png) [@rifruf](https://community.temporal.io/u/rifruf)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2022, 8:53pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/3 "2022-08-04T20:53:01Z")

</div>

Upgraded to the latest version, still getting this in my worker. I’m also running on yarn 3.2.0, and have pnp enabled if that’s of any note.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![loren](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/loren/32/5099_2.png) [@loren](https://community.temporal.io/u/loren)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2022, 9:46pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/4 "2022-08-04T21:46:56Z")

</div>

I think it’s due to the absence `long`, or having multiple versions of it. What’s the output of `yarn list long`?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jwang97](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@jwang97](https://community.temporal.io/u/jwang97)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2022, 10:24pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/5 "2022-08-04T22:24:59Z")

</div>

`yarn list` doesn’t work  
but running `yarn why` gives me:

```auto
(production-admin 🔐)➜ temporal-workflows git:(d3084b2372) ✗ yarn why long
├─ @grpc/proto-loader@npm:0.6.9
│ └─ long@npm:4.0.0 (via npm:^4.0.0)
│
├─ @scale/root@workspace:.
│ └─ long@npm:5.2.0 (via npm:^5.2.0)
│
├─ @scale/task-pipeline@workspace:packages/task-pipeline
│ └─ long@npm:5.2.0 (via npm:5.2.0)
│
├─ @temporalio/internal-workflow-common@npm:1.0.1
│ └─ long@npm:5.2.0 (via npm:^5.2.0)
│
├─ @temporalio/proto@npm:1.0.1
│ └─ long@npm:5.2.0 (via npm:^5.2.0)
│
├─ mysql2@npm:2.3.3
│ └─ long@npm:4.0.0 (via npm:^4.0.0)
│
├─ protobufjs@npm:6.11.2
│ └─ long@npm:4.0.0 (via npm:^4.0.0)
│
├─ protobufjs@npm:6.11.3
│ └─ long@npm:4.0.0 (via npm:^4.0.0)
│
├─ protobufjs@npm:7.0.0
│ └─ long@npm:5.2.0 (via npm:^5.0.0)
│
└─ python-struct@npm:1.1.3
   └─ long@npm:4.0.0 (via npm:^4.0.0)

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jwatkins](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/jwatkins/32/2581_2.png) [@jwatkins](https://community.temporal.io/u/jwatkins)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2022, 1:26pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/6 "2022-08-05T13:26:14Z")

</div>

You mention your workflows work correctly in development… What are the differences in how you prepare your code for production vs development? i.e. `ts-node` or not? `pnp`? `bundleWorkflows()` being called explicitly?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rifruf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/rifruf/32/2121_2.png) [@rifruf](https://community.temporal.io/u/rifruf)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2022, 4:16pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/7 "2022-08-05T16:16:28Z")

</div>

Ah yes I should’ve mentioned that. In both development and production, we use bundleWorkflows(). The way it’s currently run is via this code

```auto
import { bundleWorkflowCode } from '@temporalio/worker';
import { writeFile } from 'fs/promises';

async function main() {
  const { code, sourceMap } = await bundleWorkflowCode({
    workflowsPath: require.resolve('./all-workflows'),
    workflowInterceptorModules: [require.resolve('./lib/interceptors')],
  });
  await writeFile('dist/workflowBundle.js', code);
  await writeFile('dist/workflowBundle.js.map', sourceMap);
}

if (require.main === module) {
  main().catch(err => {
    // eslint-disable-next-line no-console
    console.error('Error bunding workflow code', err);
    process.exit(1);
  });
}

```

which runs via a `yarn build` script/command.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rifruf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/rifruf/32/2121_2.png) [@rifruf](https://community.temporal.io/u/rifruf)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2022, 5:48pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/8 "2022-08-05T17:48:04Z")

</div>

Actually upon further inspection, it seems we just use pnp and do a require.resolve instead of bundling it in production. Going to try bundling it in production.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rifruf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/rifruf/32/2121_2.png) [@rifruf](https://community.temporal.io/u/rifruf)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2022, 9:38pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/9 "2022-08-05T21:38:16Z")

</div>

Have also tried bundling, still no dice ☹  
What I’ve gone through:

- Upgrade to latest Temporal Typescript SDK
- Use pre bundled workflow instead of bundling at runtime
- Specify dependencies in package.json
  - Tried specifying long as a dependency

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![loren](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/loren/32/5099_2.png) [@loren](https://community.temporal.io/u/loren)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2022, 12:45am UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/10 "2022-08-06T00:45:42Z")

</div>

Sorry about that. Still not sure what’s going on, but one idea is making sure there’s no long v4 dep, by upgrading all the packages that depend on v4.

If you can make a small repro, we can take a closer look

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rifruf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/rifruf/32/2121_2.png) [@rifruf](https://community.temporal.io/u/rifruf)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 5:57pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/11 "2022-08-08T17:57:51Z")

</div>

Does long v4 not have the `mul` function?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rifruf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/rifruf/32/2121_2.png) [@rifruf](https://community.temporal.io/u/rifruf)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 5:59pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/12 "2022-08-08T17:59:28Z")

</div>

Also wanted to confirm that this `mul` function is something that should be provided by the `long` package? I had tried downloading the Temporal Typescript SDK locally and looking at the types, but for some reason couldn’t get the package to build and install properly, so wasn’t able to determine the types.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rifruf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/rifruf/32/2121_2.png) [@rifruf](https://community.temporal.io/u/rifruf)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 9:13pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/13 "2022-08-08T21:13:23Z")

</div>

Hmm, seems kinda impossible to have no long v4 dep actually. I ran a worker container locally, and running `yarn why long` gives

```auto
├─ @scale/temporal-workflows@workspace:packages/temporal-workflows
│ └─ long@npm:5.2.0 (via npm:^5.2.0)
│
├─ @temporalio/internal-workflow-common@npm:1.0.1
│ └─ long@npm:5.2.0 (via npm:^5.2.0)
│
├─ @temporalio/proto@npm:1.0.1
│ └─ long@npm:5.2.0 (via npm:^5.2.0)
│
├─ protobufjs@npm:6.11.3
│ └─ long@npm:4.0.0 (via npm:^4.0.0)
│
└─ protobufjs@npm:7.0.0
  └─ long@npm:5.2.0 (via npm:^5.0.0)

```

and `yarn info long` gives:

```auto
bash-4.4$ yarn info long
└─ long@npm:5.2.0
   └─ Version: 5.2.0

```

which implies we’re using the correct version.

However, if I drill down on what is using the one `long` package with version `4.0.0`, which seems to be `protobufjs@npm:6.11.3`, I see that the only package I have that uses that as a dependency is `proto3-json-serializer@npm:^1.0.2`, and in turn, the only package that has `proto3-json-serializer@npm:^1.0.2` as a dependency is `"@temporalio/common@npm:^1.0.1, @temporalio/common@npm:~1.0.1":`. As I’m already on the latest version of temporal, I don’t see how to ensure that long 4.0.0 isn’t present in the yarn cache whatsoever.

@loren do you have any other suggestions or information I could provide? I’ve still been unable to repro this, as it works fine locally, and only runs into this in my deployments. Thank you!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![loren](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/loren/32/5099_2.png) [@loren](https://community.temporal.io/u/loren)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 10:00pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/14 "2022-08-08T22:00:50Z")

</div>

I’ll update temporalio/common, but for now can you try pinning `proto3-json-serializer` to `1.0.3`? That uses protobufjs@7

v4 has mul and UZERO, but @jwatkins has a theory:

> it could be that `tsc` get somehow confused about the actual structure of the `Long` object… `long@5.2.0` has been converted to ESM. `tsc` needs to injects some adaptation code to correctly work with ESM modules when running in non-ESM context. What if `tsc` considers it doesn’t need to do that work on `long` because it believes it is the 4.0.0, but at runtime, it actually load the 5.2.0 which needs those adaptations…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rifruf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/rifruf/32/2121_2.png) [@rifruf](https://community.temporal.io/u/rifruf)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 10:15pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/15 "2022-08-08T22:15:48Z")

</div>

Gotcha thanks for the quick reply, I can give that a try. What’s the proper way to pin `proto3-json-serializer` to `1.0.3`, is it just by specifying `proto3-json-serializer: "^1.0.3",` in my `package.json`? Just curious if you had smth specific in mind.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![loren](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/loren/32/5099_2.png) [@loren](https://community.temporal.io/u/loren)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 10:39pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/16 "2022-08-08T22:39:26Z")

</div>

No, I’d think that should work

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jwatkins](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/jwatkins/32/2581_2.png) [@jwatkins](https://community.temporal.io/u/jwatkins)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 11:20pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/17 "2022-08-08T23:20:39Z")

</div>

Try adding this to your root package.json file:

```auto
  "resolutions": {
    "proto3-json-serializer": "1.0.3",
    "long": "5.2.0"
  }

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jwatkins](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/jwatkins/32/2581_2.png) [@jwatkins](https://community.temporal.io/u/jwatkins)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 11:40pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/18 "2022-08-08T23:40:06Z")

</div>

If that doesn’t help, would it a possibility for you test your deployment with the following addition to your .yarnrc.yml file:

```auto
pnpMode: loose

```

I strongly believe that PnP is somehow involved in this issue, though I can’t figure out why… This flag still enables PnP, but changes its resolution algorithm to be more compatible with that of NPM. If it works, it would at least confirm that we are indeed looking in the right direction…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rifruf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/rifruf/32/2121_2.png) [@rifruf](https://community.temporal.io/u/rifruf)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 11:40pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/19 "2022-08-08T23:40:41Z")

</div>

Thanks for all the suggestions, trying these out now!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rifruf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.temporal.io/rifruf/32/2121_2.png) [@rifruf](https://community.temporal.io/u/rifruf)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 5:41pm UTC](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573/20 "2022-08-09T17:41:12Z")

</div>

So those suggestions didn’t seem to fix the problem, but after some help, the problem seems to be the way that we build our Docker containers that run these workers in our deployments. Specifically, we have a line where we do `RUN yarn workspaces focus --production @temporal-workflows`, causing the container to only install dependencies, but not devDependencies. We tried running `RUN yarn workspaces focus --all @scale/temporal-workflows` instead, which seems to work.

What happens here is that the number passed in to this line ([sdk-typescript/time.ts at main · temporalio/sdk-typescript · GitHub](https://github.com/temporalio/sdk-typescript/blob/main/packages/internal-workflow-common/src/time.ts#L32)) is a `Long` when running with --all, but is just a Javascript number when running with --production.

We tried moving all the devDependencies to dependencies in our repositories `package.json` files, but this still didn’t fix the issue, so it led us to believe that it’s a possibility the error stems from within the temporalio typescript SDK package not having a dependency listed (possibly long listed here [sdk-typescript/package.json at main · temporalio/sdk-typescript · GitHub](https://github.com/temporalio/sdk-typescript/blob/main/package.json#L88)). We also had a similar problem earlier where for some reason `long` had to be specified as a dependency in our root package.json, even though we were only using `temporalio` in a package located within our `packages/` folder (and specifying `long` in that package’s `package.json` didn’t work either).

Curious if you guys have suggestions moving forward about how to best remedy this/test if this is the case? We were running into issues building/installing your typescript SDK package locally (so that we could use this) to verify.

[Next page](https://community.temporal.io/t/worker-error-with-mul-is-not-a-function/5573.md?page=2)