Error: require() of ES modules is not supported when importing node-fetch

I'm creating a program to analyze security camera streams and got stuck on the very first line. At the moment my .js file has nothing but the import of node-fetch and it gives me an error message. What am I doing wrong?

Running Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS in Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Node version:

user@MYLLYTIN:~/CAMSERVER$ node -v
v14.17.6

node-fetch package version:

user@MYLLYTIN:~/CAMSERVER$ npm v node-fetch

node-fetch@3.0.0 | MIT | deps: 2 | versions: 63
A light-weight module that brings Fetch API to node.js
https://github.com/node-fetch/node-fetch

keywords: fetch, http, promise, request, curl, wget, xhr, whatwg

dist
.tarball: https://registry.npmjs.org/node-fetch/-/node-fetch-3.0.0.tgz
.shasum: 79da7146a520036f2c5f644e4a26095f17e411ea
.integrity: sha512-bKMI+C7/T/SPU1lKnbQbwxptpCrG9ashG+VkytmXCPZyuM9jB6VU+hY0oi4lC8LxTtAeWdckNCTa3nrGsAdA3Q==
.unpackedSize: 75.9 kB

dependencies:
data-uri-to-buffer: ^3.0.1 fetch-blob: ^3.1.2         

maintainers:
- endless <jimmy@warting.se>
- bitinn <bitinn@gmail.com>
- timothygu <timothygu99@gmail.com>
- akepinski <npm@kepinski.ch>

dist-tags:
latest: 3.0.0        next: 3.0.0-beta.10  

published 3 days ago by endless <jimmy@warting.se>

esm package version:

user@MYLLYTIN:~/CAMSERVER$ npm v esm

esm@3.2.25 | MIT | deps: none | versions: 140
Tomorrow's ECMAScript modules today!
https://github.com/standard-things/esm#readme

keywords: commonjs, ecmascript, export, import, modules, node, require

dist
.tarball: https://registry.npmjs.org/esm/-/esm-3.2.25.tgz
.shasum: 342c18c29d56157688ba5ce31f8431fbb795cc10
.integrity: sha512-U1suiZ2oDVWv4zPO56S0NcR5QriEahGtdN2OR6FiOG4WJvcjBVFB0qI4+eKoWFH483PKGuLuu6V8Z4T5g63UVA==
.unpackedSize: 308.6 kB

maintainers:
- jdalton <john.david.dalton@gmail.com>

dist-tags:
latest: 3.2.25  

published over a year ago by jdalton <john.david.dalton@gmail.com>

Contents of the .js file (literally nothing but the import):

user@MYLLYTIN:~/CAMSERVER$ cat server.js 
import fetch from "node-fetch";

Result:

user@MYLLYTIN:~/CAMSERVER$ node -r esm server.js 
/home/user/CAMSERVER/node_modules/node-fetch/src/index.js:1
Error [ERR_REQUIRE_ESM]: Must use import to load ES Module: /home/user/CAMSERVER/node_modules/node-fetch/src/index.js
require() of ES modules is not supported.
require() of /home/user/CAMSERVER/node_modules/node-fetch/src/index.js from /home/user/CAMSERVER/server.js is an ES module file as it is a .js file whose nearest parent package.json contains "type": "module" which defines all .js files in that package scope as ES modules.
Instead rename index.js to end in .cjs, change the requiring code to use import(), or remove "type": "module" from /home/user/CAMSERVER/node_modules/node-fetch/package.json.

    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1089:13) {
  code: 'ERR_REQUIRE_ESM'
}
user@MYLLYTIN:~/CAMSERVER$

Solution

node-fetch v3 is ESM-only: https://github.com/node-fetch/node-fetch#loading-and-configuring-the-module. The esm module you’re adding is for adding ESM compatibility, but it’s unnecessary now that Node 12+ supports ESM natively; and it doesn’t work with ESM-only packages like node-fetch 3+.

To fix your issue:

Remove the esm package.
Add "type": "module" to your package.json.

And that’s it. Then when you run node server.js it should work.