Hi for me it worked for me i populated user field using the populate
code : —>

async function displayMessage(req,res,next){
    try{
        let data= await Msg.find().populate("user","userName userProfileImg","User")
               if(data===null) throw "Data couldn ot be loaded server error"
        else {
            res.status(200).json(data)
        }
    }   catch(err){
            next(err)
    }
}

i am directly getting the result . Here the fields userName , userProfile image are the ones that ive required selectively and the syntax for populate is :–>

 .populate("user field to populate","fields to display with spaces between each of them " , "modelName ")

every parameter should be in inverted comma’s.

Below is the output i recieve.One more thing you don’t have to worry about the populating sub-document id you will automatically get them.

[
    {
        "_id": "5e8bff324beaaa04701f3bb9",
        "text": "testing message route",
        "user": {
            "_id": "5e8bf062d3c310054cf9f293",
            "userName": "boss",
            "userProfileImg": "img"
        },
        "__v": 0
    },
    {
        "_id": "5e8bff8dd4368a2858e8f771",
        "text": "testing message route second",
        "user": {
            "_id": "5e8bf062d3c310054cf9f293",
            "userName": "boss",
            "userProfileImg": "img"
        },
        "__v": 0
    },
    {
        "_id": "5e8c0c08e9bdb8209829176a",
        "text": "testing message route second",
        "user": {
            "_id": "5e8bf062d3c310054cf9f293",
            "userName": "boss",
            "userProfileImg": "img"
        },
        "__v": 0
    },
    {
        "_id": "5e8c0e0bcb63b12ec875962a",
        "text": "testing message route fourth time",
        "user": {
            "_id": "5e8bf062d3c310054cf9f293",
            "userName": "boss",
            "userProfileImg": "img"
        },
        "__v": 0
    }
]