Error initializing environment after running "amplify init." - reactjs

Question

Working on a web app using react.js that I picked up from another developer. Currently, trying to use AWS Amplify and I will eventually use AWS Cognito for authentication purposes.
I am using the following tutorial: https://hackernoon.com/react-authentication-in-depth-4deebda9aa45
I've already executed the following commands:
$ npm i -g #aws-amplify/cli
$ amplify configure
I've set up my CLI with the amplify config command, to include setting up the environment, access key ID and Secret Access key.
Error comes after running
$ amplify init
I've already seen a stack overflow post that states that this is a known error for the CLI, and that a fix has been implemented in the latest version of the CLI. I've tried updating amplify and re-installing. This is my second attempt to reinstall.
Here is a copy of the error in terminal.
MacBook-Air% amplify init
Note: It is recommended to run this command from the root of your app directory
? Do you want to use an existing environment? Yes
? Choose the environment you would like to use: discrete
Using default provider awscloudformation
✖ There was an error initializing your environment.
init failed
{ AccessDenied: Access Denied
at Request.extractError (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/#aws-amplify/cli/node_modules/aws-sdk/lib/services/s3.js:585:35)
at Request.callListeners (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/#aws-amplify/cli/node_modules/aws-sdk/lib/sequential_executor.js:106:20)
at Request.emit (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/#aws-amplify/cli/node_modules/aws-sdk/lib/sequential_executor.js:78:10)
at Request.emit (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/#aws-amplify/cli/node_modules/aws-sdk/lib/request.js:683:14)
at Request.transition (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/#aws-amplify/cli/node_modules/aws-sdk/lib/request.js:22:10)
at AcceptorStateMachine.runTo (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/#aws-amplify/cli/node_modules/aws-sdk/lib/state_machine.js:14:12)
at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/#aws-amplify/cli/node_modules/aws-sdk/lib/state_machine.js:26:10
at Request.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/#aws-amplify/cli/node_modules/aws-sdk/lib/request.js:38:9)
at Request.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/#aws-amplify/cli/node_modules/aws-sdk/lib/request.js:685:12)
at Request.callListeners (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/#aws-amplify/cli/node_modules/aws-sdk/lib/sequential_executor.js:116:18)
message: 'Access Denied',
code: 'AccessDenied',
region: null,
time: 2019-05-01T18:09:17.901Z,
requestId: '7814262360A7DF07',
extendedRequestId:
'Y1woT4qs3VOtSCQG7sWNu7zexB2O+ZNP3oiBugTdfkHbK4Um5vzOS05P5qsZRcRFUPVTAbey8Q0=',
cfId: undefined,
statusCode: 403,
retryable: false,
retryDelay: 155.200421877319 }
Expect environment to properly initialize and amplify to be properly configured.

Answer 1

In my case, I cloned a repo from codecommit and doing amplify init and facing the same problem. To solve this, I rename aws-export.js to aws-export.mjs and again run amplify init and it initialize the project without any error.

Answer 2

You can check those issues reported at github project.
We had a similar issue using '#aws-amplify/cli' is version: '2.0.0', at aws Amplify Console.
Our envs develop, PR, etc. were building fine but master did not.
So, we change the version from 2.0.0 to 4.0.0 and build start working again.
Check
Console broken again (probably related to aws-amplify/cli 2.0.0)
AccessDenied error when deploying backend

Answer 3

It looks like the git repo has already teamproviderinfo.json present or some environment setting checking conflicting with your current setting. So when you try to init the project with environment name 'dev' or the one with the copied repo from git, it is trying to reuse the existing resources.
Solution: Try using a different name for the environment instead of dev and see if that works.
In my case it solved such issue.