Node Js(Express) - POST req.body is empty (unusual) - node.js

Question

I didn't realize how common and tricky this problem is. I have spent many hour reviewing all the previous situations and answers. Needless to say, none apply.
I am making a httpClient POST call from Angular 5 to a nodejs/express url. The application makes many of these calls and all works except this one:
Angular component
this.ezzy.post(this.config.api.createConnectAccount, this.AuthCode, true, true, true)
.subscribe((data) => {
if (data.code === '0') {
angular http call
ngOnInit() {
........
createConnectAccount(url, body, loadingIcon, withCredentials, showErrorToast) {
console.log(`CREATE CONNECT ACCOUNT....${url}...${JSON.stringify(body)}`);
const headers = this.ezzy.preAjax(loadingIcon, withCredentials);
return this.http.post(url, body, { withCredentials, headers })
.map((res) => this.ezzy.postAjax(res, showErrorToast))
.catch((err) => this.ezzy.handleError(err));
}
I can confirm that both the url and the authCode/body are correct and present up tho this point.
router.post (Nodejs)
router.post('/users/createConnectAccount', async(req, res, next) => {
// console.log (`REQ BODY FROM PAYOUT DASH: ${JSON.stringify(req)}`);
console.log(`ENTER CREATE CONNECT ACCOUNT...code......${req.body.code}`);
console.log(`ENTER CREATE CONNECT ACCOUNT..body......${JSON.stringify(req.body)}`);
console.log(`REQ HEADERS: ${JSON.stringify(req.headers)}`);
Here are the differences with other similar calls:
1. The angular component was activated from an external call to its endpoint (localhost:3000/dealer?code='1234'. The code was retrieved succesfully in the component's constructor and assigned to authCode.
2. The angular http call orginated inside the ngOnInit. I am trying to get some info and update the db before rendering the component page.
I am using
app.use(json());
app.use(urlencoded({
extended: true
}));
and a console.log of the req.header before the call is this:
ENTER CREATE CONNECT ACCOUNT...code......undefined
ENTER CREATE CONNECT ACCOUNT..body......{}
REQ HEADERS: {"host":"localhost:3000","connection":"keep-alive","content-length":"35","accept":"application/json,
text/plain, */*","sec-fetch-dest":"empty","user-agent":"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/80.0.3987.163 Safari/537.36","content-type":"text/plain","origin":"http://localhost:3000","sec-fetch-site":"same-origin","sec-fetch-mode":"cors","referer":"http://localhost:3000/payout-dashboard?code=ac_H5nP4MUbEbp94K13jkA5h1DRG6f6pgOn&state=2lt8v9le8a5","accept-encoding":"gzip, deflate, br","accept-language":"en-US,en;q=0.9","cookie":"connect.sid=s%3AsWLHYTY02P2EvYZy1FIVQzZLC6M0vR5p.GnU%2BU20RcjPYeG3lAUEDV9q1vmLceBPAfEE488ej5M4; _ga=GA1.1.695338957.1586021131; _gid=GA1.1.1793736642.1586291730; PDToken=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJlbWFpbCI6InNlYWthaG1haWxAZ21haWwuY29tIiwibmlja25hbWUiOiIiLCJjYXRlZ29yeSI6IiIsImlhdCI6MTU4NjgyMDYyMSwiZXhwIjoxNjE4MzU2NjIxfQ.09gx1F_YJPxAs7BiiYToetdJhjd5DsUUkdoo3leFscU; io=yysQe40_plBblVuSAAAA"}
If you notice that the content-type is:
"content-type":"text/plain"
and the accepted is:
"accept":"application/json,
text/plain, */*"
and the code is present:
code=ac_H5nP4MUbEbp94K13jkA5h1DRG6f6pgOn&state=2lt8v9le8a5"
YET...I get empty req.body.
BTW....it works from postman
ENTER CREATE CONNECT ACCOUNT...code......ac_H5ikfuYleQromTeP5LnHGEmfEWaYD3he
ENTER CREATE CONNECT ACCOUNT..body......{"code":"ac_H5ikfuYleQromTeP5LnHGEmfEWaYD3he"}
REQ HEADERS: {"user-agent":"PostmanRuntime/7.24.1",
"accept":"*/*","postman-token":"0d5faea6-4684-408e-9235-c5e14b306918",
"host":"localhost:3000",
"accept-encoding":"gzip,
deflate, br","connection":"keep-alive",
"content-type":"application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
"content-length":"40","cookie":"connect.sid=s%3ASahJY3VqXVjTjXF1X-SlU_9Shexa59Tm.Q0SRM1h%2FxJnoEnjS3u3I3x%2F%2FnLs%2FLzyiHGoJNuo0U7M"}
Sorry to be so long...but I am baffled

Answer 1

The urlencoded express middleware only parses the body when the Content-Type of the request matches the type option. By default, the type option is application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Either set the Content-Type of your request from text/plain to application/x-www-form-urlencoded, or pass {"type": "text/plain"} to urlencoded(...) to overwrite the default behavior.