Getting "cannot use import statement outside of a module" errors and don't want to upgrade Node

I have started to get cannot use import statement outside a module errors all of a sudden when adding code to my backend and now it is asking to change the style of my imports from what it was before.

I have seen other questions where it recommends upgrading node however as I have had previously ran into errors with newer versions and version 12.13 was previously problem free I don't want to change it again.

What is likely to have caused this problem? Would I be best removing new code?

The code I have added was from a MongoDB exmaple using mongoose whereas I my app is using Sequelize and Postgres.

\user.controller.js:3  import errorHandler from "../helpers/dbErrorHandler";  ^^^^^^    SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module  

//previous code in file  exports.siteAdminLevel = (req, res) => {      res.status(200).send("Site admin content.");  };    // new code in file    exports.userByID = async (req, res, next, id) => {      try {          let user = await user.findById(id).populate('following', '_id name')              .populate('followers', '_id name')              .exec()          if (!user)              return res.status('400').json({                  error: "User not found"              })          req.profile = user          next()      } catch (err) {          return res.status('400').json({              error: "Could not retrieve user"          })      }  }  

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66837540/getting-cannot-use-import-statement-outside-of-a-module-errors-and-dont-want March 28, 2021 at 08:59AM