Axios request: ECONNREFUSED

I'm new to web dev and getting the following error when I make an axios post/get request: "request to http://MY_IP:9999/ failed, reason: connect ECONNREFUSED MY_IP:9999"

I believe this a problem with my middle ware and may be because I'm not using a Docker or proxy. I am trying to debug an old program and I see it previously used docker and prisma which I think may be what I'm looking for. However, I am new to this and am unsure how to use it.

When I run ping MY_IP_ADDRESS:9999 I get the response: No route to host