Then, the server sends an HTTP response back to the browser.Īlong with these requests and responses, browsers and servers also include HTTP status codes, which are numerical codes like 431. Your web browser sends an HTTP request to the server for certain information – e.g. It does this using HTTP, which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. When you visit a website, your web browser needs a way to communicate with the webserver behind that website. Check Out Our Video Guide to Fixing the 431 Error What Is HTTP Error 431?īefore we can talk about the HTTP error 431 specifically, we first need to talk about what HTTP is and where these errors come from. For example, this is what GitHub returns in case of a 401 error: = require ( "./middleware/" ) const messagesRouter = express. To get an idea of how to define a good custom error response format, you can have a look at what reputable companies with public APIs like Google, Apple, and Amazon do in case of errors. Now, let’s see an interesting format for your custom error responses. On the contrary, you should never provide additional info on your 5xx error responses. This is why you should consider customization on error responses only on 4xx errors, which are all directly referable to the client. Although providing extra info in case of errors can be helpful, you should never return info that could jeopardize the security of your application. Notice that customizing error responses represent a security concern. Therefore, providing a detailed message on 4xx errors helps end-users, and it is also why several companies with public APIs use custom error responses. On the other hand, if the server returned a 400 HTTP status code response containing the "customerId required" or "customerId must be a number" message, the client could figure out how they need to call the API properly and avoid making the same mistake twice. As you can imagine, the default "Bad Request" message cannot help the caller understand how they should call the API. As a result, it will receive a generic 400 Bad Request error from the server. Now, a client calls that API without the customerId parameter or using a non-numeric string. This means returning additional data along with the HTTP error status code.įor example, imagine a situation where an API requires a numeric customerId parameter. Therefore, you need to customize error responses to provide the client with more details about the problem that occurred. Why Customize Error Responses?Ĭonsidering that 4xx errors are caused by the client's request, not receiving enough info to understand why that request failed may be frustrating. Let’s delve into why you might need to customize your HTTP error responses. However, with 4xx errors, the HTTP status code alone may not be enough, and you should provide the client with more info. For example, the 400 status code should be used when the form of the client request is not as the API expects, while the 401 status code should be returned when the client provides no credentials or invalid credentials. In fact, each 4xx or 5xx HTTP status code corresponds to a particular type of error. Using the right HTTP error status codes is important to help the client understand what occurred. This is because you do not want an attacker to understand how the server works based on what you returned to them. For security reasons, you should not provide the client with additional info about this type of error. The 5xx class of HTTP status code refers to errors encountered by the server while processing the request. When it comes to 4xx errors, the server should provide the client with additional info behind the error to prevent it from causing it again. The 4xx class of HTTP status code refers to errors due to the client's request, for example, because of a malformed request. The many HTTP status codes available can be grouped into the following five classes based on their number:Īs you can see, there are only two categories of HTTP status codes that represent errors: 4xx and 5xx. The HTTP status code is a code number returned by the server in response to a client's request. An Introduction to HTTP Error Status Codes Let's see what you need to get started with error response customization for 401 Unauthorized and 403 Forbidden errors in Express. This is a great addition you can make to your backend application, especially considering that implementing it requires only a few lines of code. For this reason, several companies introduced a custom error response format to provide the caller with everything they need to deal with the error. The 4xx HTTP status codes may not be enough to describe the cause of the error to the client.
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