4.40.0 -> 4.40.1: Breaking change - OpenAI is not a constructor

[YasharF]

Confirm this is a Node library issue and not an underlying OpenAI API issue

• This is an issue with the Node library

Describe the bug

Based on numbers, 4.40.1 is supposed to be a bug fix release over 4.40.0, so I didn't expect something to break. I have not tested the application after 4.40.1 to see if anything else is broken.

const openai = new OpenAI({
^

TypeError: OpenAI is not a constructor

To Reproduce

Code saved as test.js:

const openaiKey = "a valid OpenAI key"
const OpenAI = require('openai');

const openai = new OpenAI({
	apiKey: openaiKey,
});

 >> npm install openai@4.40.0
 >> node test.js
(no errors.)
 >> npm install openai@4.40.1
 >> node test.js
 const openai = new OpenAI({
               ^

TypeError: OpenAI is not a constructor
 >> npm install openai@4.40.0
 >> node test.js
(no errors.)

Code snippets

No response

OS

WSL Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Node version

v20.12.2

Library version

4.40.1

[bizob2828]

At New Relic we instrument this package and this behavior is causing issues. I want to echo from what @YasharF has said that this was released in a patch and is a breaking change. This works fine when doing

import OpenAI from 'openai';

const openai = new OpenAI({
  apiKey: process.env['OPENAI_API_KEY'], // This is the default and can be omitted
});

so maybe the exports in package.json need updated as well to handle CJS?

[Galkon]

Using this package in a project and 4.40.1 breaks production builds due to this error. Works in local development environment. Reverting to 4.40.0 fixes it.

[mtharrison]

Having a similar issue in tests where I stub OpenAI.Embeddings.prototype which has now moved to OpenAI.OpenAI.Embeddings.prototype

[Eomm]

This bot's PR seems the root cause 😄 #815

[RobertCraigie]

sorry about this, we're investigating.

[rattrayalex]

Thanks for reporting. Can you share your tsconfig to aid with repro?

[mahaboobkhan29]

Ah... I thought my code had some issues.
I use Express.js and didn't set ES modules in package.json, and it worked fine before, but now it's throwing an error

const OpenAI = require("openai");
const openai = new OpenAI({
    apikey: process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY
});

Error: OpenAI is not a constructor

Are you guys investigating this?

[jsumners-nr]

Thanks for reporting. Can you share your tsconfig to aid with repro?

The reproduction supplied in the opening report is plain JavaScript plus Node.js. There is no TypeScript involved.

[mtharrison]

Thanks for reporting. Can you share your tsconfig to aid with repro?

My report is also from a is in a pure JS repo. As reported above it works ok using ESM but CJS is where it fails.

[mtharrison]

Minimal repro is simply:

const OpenAi = require('openai');
const client = new OpenAi();

$ node index.js
TypeError: OpenAi is not a constructor.....

[RobertCraigie]

this will be fixed in the next release: #818

[mahaboobkhan29]

@RobertCraigie when can we expect the fix version release in NPM

[RobertCraigie]

This has been fixed in v4.40.2

[poshest]

@RobertCraigie Thank you! To whom in OpenAI may I send an invoice for the 4 hours of developer time spent troubleshooting this? ;)

[canws]

Thanks a lot , finally working this.

[dreamsavior]

This has been fixed in v4.40.2

No, this hasn’t been fixed. I’m still having the problem on the latest version, 4.51.

[ygorcarmo]

Same here but only after I tried to implement datadog.

[dgellow]

@dreamsavior Please open another GitHub issue if you're still having problems with the latest version of the SDK