Why can't I use: "await .getAttribute()" in Protractor, even though it returns a promise?

Question

I am trying to change my Protractor tests to use async/await instead of the selenium control flow, but it won't let me use await for the .getAttribute() function. All i get is this error Message: "SyntaxError: await is only valid in async function". But shouldn't .getAttribute() be async since it returns a promise?

Here is one of many examples where i get this error:

this.navBarcreator = async () => {        
    var mapArray = {}

    await element.all(by.tagName('mat-list-item')).each((elem) => {
        var tmp = await elem.getAttribute('aria-describedby')
        if (tmp != null) {
            ...
        }
    })

Answer 1

(elem) => {
    var tmp = await elem.getAttribute('aria-describedby')
    if (tmp != null) {
        ...
    }

That function is not async, and it has to be async for await to work. Make your callback async and it should work.

async (elem) => { //... }