Why does this promise silently fail?

Question

db.collection.findOne is an async operation (MongoDB, but that doesn't really matter here), which is why I'm wrapping it in a promise here.

var letsDoSomething = new Promise(function(resolve, reject){
    db.collection('stackoverflow').findOne({question: true}, function(err, question){
        resolve(question); // let's pretend we found a question here, and it is now resolving
    })
})

letsDoSomething.then(function(myData){ // it resolves
    console.log('foo', bar); // since 'bar' is undefined, this should fail – why doesn't it? No error messages, it goes completely silent
});

Why doesn't the debugger throw an error when I try to log bar, which simply doesn't exist? It just goes poof silent, not a word.

Expected result (in my mind):

console.log('foo', bar);
ReferenceError: bar is not defined

What am I missing?

Environment:

node -v
v0.12.4

perhaps "pretend we found a question here" isn't enough to actually resolve the Promise — Jaromanda X, Aug 11 '15 at 10:07
Use io.js and not nodejs and use the `process.on("unhandledRejection"` event, or use a library that's drop-in like Bluebird. — Benjamin Gruenbaum, Aug 11 '15 at 11:05

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

It is not swallowing that error, but if a then or catch handler results in an error, then the current promise will be rejected with that error.

In your case, ReferenceError is thrown, but it rejects the promise. You can see the actual error being propagated, by attaching a catch handler, like this

new Promise(function (resolve, reject) {
    resolve(true);
  })
  .then(function (result) {
    console.log(result, bar);
  })
  .catch(function (er) {
    console.error('Inside Catch', er);
  });

Now you will see

Inside Catch [ReferenceError: bar is not defined]

Why does this promise silently fail?

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