localhost recognizes .env file in my node.js sever but not on ubuntu

ok, so I hid a password in my node.js server using a .env file

const env = require('dotenv').config();
var pass = {
  password: process.env.PASS
};

It works perfectly and I can sign in to my admin portal on my localhost but I can't on the site hosted on ubuntu. I triple checked to make sure that the dotenv npm was downloaded on ubuntu and that my mongo database has the correct username and password in ubuntu. Is there another reason why its not working?

via Dominic Zenon