This is probably a regression due to this commit - https://github.com/mongodb/node-mongodb-native/commit/940850b891100547e94daa6b5e4b4737b6cde73b

In line 1035, this conditional check seems to be the problem.

if(err && err.code && err.code != 48 && options && options.strict) return callback(err, null);

In case of collection already exists error, there is no code being returned. Below is the error returned by the runCommand.

Not sure whether err.code check is required over there (maybe some hack), but if it is something that is needed for 2.8 then it could be written as

if(err && (!err.code || err.code && err.code != 48) && options && options.strict)