upload base64 (file) to php server via node js - php

Question

I currently have a situation where FormData doesn't work for me. I'm using a specific "engine" Adobe CEP which is a little antiquated and the formData causes issues. My solution was to upload a file directly via base64 encoding. From Node JS I do:
let buff = new Buffer(filePath);
let base64data = buff.toString('base64');
console.log(base64data);
The console.log gives me the string:
Li4vLi4vLi4vLi4vLi4vLi4vLi4vVXNlcnMvb21hcmd1em1hbi8vRGVza3RvcC9Zb28vYWkyaHRtbC1vdXRwdXQvaG9tZS1wcm8tQXJ0Ym9hcmRfMS5qcGc=
axios.post(API_ENDPOINT, base64data)
.then(res => console.log(res))
From here I upload to a php server via axios.
The server receives it and I do:
<?php
$data = json_decode( file_get_contents('php://input') );
file_put_contents('testmeimg.jpg', base64_decode($data));
echo 'completed';
?>
another attempt
$data = file_get_contents('php://input');
file_put_contents('testmeimg.jpg', base64_decode($data));
var_dump($data);
"string(120) "Li4vLi4vLi4vLi4vLi4vLi4vLi4vVXNlcnMvb21hcmd1em1hbi8vRGVza3RvcC9Zb28vYWkyaHRtbC1vdXRwdXQvaG9tZS1wcm8tQXJ0Ym9hcmRfMS5qcGc="
"
The file correctly gets saved to my server but it's damaged and unreadable.
It also appears with zero bytes. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? or how I should handle this b64?

Answer 1

Thanks to the great help by #rickdenhaan aka the man.
I changed my node buffer code to:
let buff = new Buffer(fs.readFileSync(filePath));
let base64data = buff.toString('base64');
Previously I wasn't sending the file buffer only the path as a buffer.
Then on the php side this worked:
$data = file_get_contents('php://input');
file_put_contents('testmeimg.jpg', base64_decode($data));