Node.js: having trouble with mocha and expect to.throwError

I'm trying to build a simple login module for Node. I'm trying to do it in a TDD way, but I'm still new to it, so any tips or resources that will help me understand it better would be great.

My problem comes when I query a database with invalid data, and I'm expecting an error. The error is thrown if I test the app manually - which is great. However when I try to test it with Mocha and Expect.js, I get Error: expected fn to throw an exception. If I switch the code from to.throwError() to to.not.throwError() the errors are thrown properly. I think the problem is coming in somewhere with my attempts at asynchronous tests and error handling. The first test passes fine.

Thanks for taking a look.

New code based on SebastianG's instructions

login.js

var MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;

exports.login = function(callback, email, password) {

    MongoClient.connect("mongodb://localhost:27017/stockalertDev", function(err, db) {
        if (err) {

            return err;
        }

        var collection = db.collection('users');
        if (email) {
            collection.findOne({email:email}, function(err, item) {
            try {   
                if (err) {
                    console.log('error');
                    throw new Error('error finding email');

                } else {

                        if (item) {
                            if (item.password == password) {
                            console.log('logged in');
                            //callback(null, item);
                            //return item;
                            } else {
                                console.log('here');
                                throw new Error('Email and password not matching');
                            }
                        } else {
                            throw new Error('Email not found');
                        }
                    } 
            } catch (err) {
                console.log('catch error here');
                callback(err, null);
            } finally {
                console.log('finally here');
                callback(null, item);
            }

            });
        }

    });
}

test/login-test.js

var expect = require('expect.js'),
    assert = require('assert'),
    mocha = require('mocha'),
    mongo = require('mongodb');


var login = require('../login');

describe('login', function() {
    it('should login a real user', function(done) {
        expect(function() {
            login.login(function(err, item) {
                //console.log(item);
                if (err) throw err;

                done();
            }, 'email', 'password')
        }).to.not.throwError();
    });
    it('should error on unfound email', function(done) {
        expect(function() {
            login.login(function(err, item) {
                console.log(err);
                if (err) throw err;
                done();
            }, 'ert','wqew')
        }).to.throwError();

    }); 
    it('should error on incorrect match', function(done) {
        expect(function() {
            login.login(function(err, item) {
                console.log(err);
                throw err;
                done();
            }, 'email','wqew')
        }).to.throwError();
    });
});

Old code

login.js

var MongoClient = require('mongodb').MongoClient;

exports.login = function(email, password, callback, errCallback) {

    MongoClient.connect("mongodb://localhost:27017/stockalertDev", function(err, db) {
        if (err) {

            return err;
        }

        var collection = db.collection('users');
        if (email) {
            collection.findOne({email:email}, function(err, item) {
            try {   
                if (err) {
                    console.log('error');
                    throw new Error('error finding email');
                    errCallback(err);
                } else {

                        if (item) {
                            if (item.password == password) {
                            console.log('logged in');
                            callback(item);
                            //return item;
                            } else {
                                console.log('here');
                                throw new Error('Email and password not matching');
                            }
                        } else {
                            throw new Error('Email not found');
                        }
                    } 
            } catch (err) {
                errCallback(err);
            }
            });
        }

    });
}

test/login-test.js

var expect = require('expect.js'),
    assert = require('assert'),
    mocha = require('mocha'),
    mongo = require('mongodb');


var login = require('../login');

describe('login', function() {
    it('should login a real user', function(done) {
        assert.doesNotThrow(function() {
            login.login('email','password',function() {
                done();
            }, function(err) {
                if (err) throw err;
                done();
            });
        });
    });
    it('should error on unfound email', function(done) {
        expect( function() { 
            login.login('atreq','a', function() {
                console.log('true');        
            }, function(err) {
                console.log(err);
                throw err;
        })}).to.throwError();

    }); 
    it('should error on incorrect match', function(done) {
        expect(function() {
            login.login('email','apassword', function() {
                console.log('true');
                done();
            }, function(err) {
                console.log(err);
                throw err;
            })
        }).to.throwError();
    });
});

Using exeptions in asynchronous Node code is a bad idea (at least for the moment). There is a concept called Domains which could help you but is extremely experimental yet.

I suggest to do it the Node way: Reserve the first parameter of your callback for errors. Small example:

function getUserData(cb) {
    var userData = // ...
    if (userData === null) {
        cb(new Error('Something bad happend.'));
    } else {
        cb(null, userData)
    }
}

If you want to use a errorCallback as you already do use it:

errCallback(new Error('Email not found'));

Than you can do something like this (most testing frameworks provide helper methods for this, however I'm not that familar with Mocha and it's modules):

it('should login a real user', function(done) {
    login.login(function(err, item) {
        expect(err).to.be(null);
        expect(item).not.to.be(null);
        done();
    }, 'email', 'password');
});


it('should error on unfound email', function(done) {
    login.login(function(err, item) {
        expect(err).not.to.be(null);
        expect(item).to.be(null);
        done();
    }, 'ert','wqew');
});