angular / angular/angularfire

AppCheck Error: reCAPTCHA placeholder element must be empty

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Dominant language
TypeScript
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Description

### Version info

- **Angular:** 13.0.3
- **Firebase:** 9.6.0 (released [last week](https://firebase.google.com/support/release-notes/js))
- **AngularFire:** 7.2.0 (with rxfire 6.0.3)
- **FirebaseUI:** 6.0.0 (with firebaseui-angular 6.1.0)

### How to reproduce these conditions

Added and configured **Firebase App Check** following the [documentation](https://firebase.google.com/docs/app-check/web/recaptcha-provider#initialize). In `app.module.ts`:
```typescript
provideAppCheck(() => initializeAppCheck(getApp(),
{ provider: new ReCaptchaV3Provider(recaptcha3SiteKey), isTokenAutoRefreshEnabled: true })),
```

**Error in production build:** (`ng build --configuration=production` deployed on Firebase Hosting)

`Error: reCAPTCHA placeholder element must be empty` which then causes: `@firebase/firestore: Could not reach Cloud Firestore backend.`

![reCAPTCHA error in prod](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5672108/145540484-d41fd76f-6f83-4012-a4a1-245ba344fc2f.png)

**Why this happens?**

According to an old [Stackoverflow question](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37021241/error-recaptcha-placeholder-element-must-be-empty), it might be because "You are loading the google recaptcha library twice."

**Network tab**

Indeed, looking at the Network tab, `recaptcha__en.js` is loaded twice.
![reCAPTCHA loaded twice](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5672108/145541040-531bf37b-4b76-4ce7-a61a-b5aef7630952.png)

**Could the second recaptcha be loaded by something else?**

I initially suspected FirebaseUI is loading the second recaptcha.
However, commenting out `provideAppCheck()` in `app.module.ts` then checking the network tab shows 0 instances of `recaptcha__en.js`, leading to the conclusion that both were loaded through `provideAppCheck()`.

### Summary

`provideAppCheck()` seems to load recaptcha library twice, causing a console error and disrupting Firestore completely.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start at the provideAppCheck() configuration in app.module.ts and reproduce with ng build --configuration=production while watching the Network tab. Compare the production initialization path with the case where provideAppCheck() is commented out. Done means reCAPTCHA loads once, the placeholder error is absent, and Firestore reaches its backend.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
angular, firebase, typescript
Domain
cloud, security
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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