jQuery Ajax error handling, show custom exception messages

Make sure you're setting Response.StatusCode to something other than 200. Write your exception's message using Response.Write, then use...

xhr.responseText

..in your javascript.

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Controller:

public class ClientErrorHandler : FilterAttribute, IExceptionFilter
{
    public void OnException(ExceptionContext filterContext)
    {
        var response = filterContext.RequestContext.HttpContext.Response;
        response.Write(filterContext.Exception.Message);
        response.ContentType = MediaTypeNames.Text.Plain;
        filterContext.ExceptionHandled = true;
    }
}

[ClientErrorHandler]
public class SomeController : Controller
{
    [HttpPost]
    public ActionResult SomeAction()
    {
        throw new Exception("Error message");
    }
}

View script:

$.ajax({
    type: "post", url: "/SomeController/SomeAction",
    success: function (data, text) {
        //...
    },
    error: function (request, status, error) {
        alert(request.responseText);
    }
});

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ServerSide:

     doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response){ 
            try{ //logic
            }catch(ApplicationException exception){ 
               response.setStatus(400);
               response.getWriter().write(exception.getMessage());
               //just added semicolon to end of line

           }
 }

ClientSide:

 jQuery.ajax({// just showing error property
           error: function(jqXHR,error, errorThrown) {  
               if(jqXHR.status&&jqXHR.status==400){
                    alert(jqXHR.responseText); 
               }else{
                   alert("Something went wrong");
               }
          }
    }); 

Generic Ajax Error Handling

If I need to do some generic error handling for all the ajax requests. I will set the ajaxError handler and display the error on a div named errorcontainer on the top of html content.

$("div#errorcontainer")
    .ajaxError(
        function(e, x, settings, exception) {
            var message;
            var statusErrorMap = {
                '400' : "Server understood the request, but request content was invalid.",
                '401' : "Unauthorized access.",
                '403' : "Forbidden resource can't be accessed.",
                '500' : "Internal server error.",
                '503' : "Service unavailable."
            };
            if (x.status) {
                message =statusErrorMap[x.status];
                                if(!message){
                                      message="Unknown Error \n.";
                                  }
            }else if(exception=='parsererror'){
                message="Error.\nParsing JSON Request failed.";
            }else if(exception=='timeout'){
                message="Request Time out.";
            }else if(exception=='abort'){
                message="Request was aborted by the server";
            }else {
                message="Unknown Error \n.";
            }
            $(this).css("display","inline");
            $(this).html(message);
                 });

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You need to convert the responseText to JSON. Using JQuery:

jsonValue = jQuery.parseJSON( jqXHR.responseText );
console.log(jsonValue.Message);

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If making a call to asp.net, this will return the error message title:

I didn't write all of formatErrorMessage myself but i find it very useful.

function formatErrorMessage(jqXHR, exception) {

    if (jqXHR.status === 0) {
        return ('Not connected.\nPlease verify your network connection.');
    } else if (jqXHR.status == 404) {
        return ('The requested page not found. [404]');
    } else if (jqXHR.status == 500) {
        return ('Internal Server Error [500].');
    } else if (exception === 'parsererror') {
        return ('Requested JSON parse failed.');
    } else if (exception === 'timeout') {
        return ('Time out error.');
    } else if (exception === 'abort') {
        return ('Ajax request aborted.');
    } else {
        return ('Uncaught Error.\n' + jqXHR.responseText);
    }
}


var jqxhr = $.post(addresshere, function() {
  alert("success");
})
.done(function() { alert("second success"); })
.fail(function(xhr, err) { 

    var responseTitle= $(xhr.responseText).filter('title').get(0);
    alert($(responseTitle).text() + "\n" + formatErrorMessage(xhr, err) ); 
})

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If someone is here as in 2016 for the answer, use .fail() for error handling as .error() is deprecated as of jQuery 3.0

$.ajax( "example.php" )
  .done(function() {
    alert( "success" );
  })
  .fail(function(jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown) {
    //handle error here
  })

I hope it helps

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This is what I did and it works so far in a MVC 5 application.

Controller's return type is ContentResult.

public ContentResult DoSomething()
{
    if(somethingIsTrue)
    {
        Response.StatusCode = 500 //Anything other than 2XX HTTP status codes should work
        Response.Write("My Message");
        return new ContentResult();
    }

    //Do something in here//
    string json = "whatever json goes here";

    return new ContentResult{Content = json, ContentType = "application/json"};
}

And on client side this is what ajax function looks like

$.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    url: URL,
    data: DATA,
    dataType: "json",
    success: function (json) {
        //Do something with the returned json object.
    },
    error: function (xhr, status, errorThrown) {
        //Here the status code can be retrieved like;
        xhr.status;

        //The message added to Response object in Controller can be retrieved as following.
        xhr.responseText;
    }
});

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A general/reusable solution

This answer is provided for future reference to all those that bump into this problem. Solution consists of two things:

Custom exception ModelStateException that gets thrown when validation fails on the server (model state reports validation errors when we use data annotations and use strong typed controller action parameters) Custom controller action error filter HandleModelStateExceptionAttribute that catches custom exception and returns HTTP error status with model state error in the body

This provides the optimal infrastructure for jQuery Ajax calls to use their full potential with success and error handlers.

Client side code

$.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    url: "some/url",
    success: function(data, status, xhr) {
        // handle success
    },
    error: function(xhr, status, error) {
        // handle error
    }
});

Server side code

[HandleModelStateException]
public ActionResult Create(User user)
{
    if (!this.ModelState.IsValid)
    {
        throw new ModelStateException(this.ModelState);
    }

    // create new user because validation was successful
}

The whole problem is detailed in this blog post where you can find all the code to run this in your application.

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error:function (xhr, ajaxOptions, thrownError) { alert(xhr.status); alert(thrownError); }

such as

success: function(data){ // data is object send form server // property of data // status type boolean // msg type string // result type string if(data.status){ // true not error $('#api_text').val(data.result); } else { $('#error_text').val(data.msg); } }

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I found this to be nice because I could parse out the message I was sending from the server and display a friendly message to the user without the stacktrace...

error: function (response) {
      var r = jQuery.parseJSON(response.responseText);
      alert("Message: " + r.Message);
      alert("StackTrace: " + r.StackTrace);
      alert("ExceptionType: " + r.ExceptionType);
}

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This function basically generates unique random API key's and in case if it doesn't then pop-up dialog box with error message appears

In View Page:

<div class="form-group required">
    <label class="col-sm-2 control-label" for="input-storename"><?php echo $entry_storename; ?></label>
    <div class="col-sm-6">
        <input type="text" class="apivalue"  id="api_text" readonly name="API" value="<?php echo strtoupper(substr(md5(rand().microtime()), 0, 12)); ?>" class="form-control" />                                                                    
        <button type="button" class="changeKey1" value="Refresh">Re-Generate</button>
    </div>
</div>

<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
    $('.changeKey1').click(function(){
          debugger;
        $.ajax({
                url  :"index.php?route=account/apiaccess/regenerate",
                type :'POST',
                dataType: "json",
                async:false,
                contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
                success: function(data){
                  var result =  data.sync_id.toUpperCase();
                        if(result){
                          $('#api_text').val(result);
                        }
                  debugger;
                  },
                error: function(xhr, ajaxOptions, thrownError) {
                  alert(thrownError + "\r\n" + xhr.statusText + "\r\n" + xhr.responseText);
                }

        });
    });
  });
</script>

From Controller:

public function regenerate(){
    $json = array();
    $api_key = substr(md5(rand(0,100).microtime()), 0, 12);
    $json['sync_id'] = $api_key; 
    $json['message'] = 'Successfully API Generated';
    $this->response->addHeader('Content-Type: application/json');
    $this->response->setOutput(json_encode($json));
}

The optional callback parameter specifies a callback function to run when the load() method is completed. The callback function can have different parameters:

Type: Function( jqXHR jqXHR, String textStatus, String errorThrown )

A function to be called if the request fails. The function receives three arguments: The jqXHR (in jQuery 1.4.x, XMLHttpRequest) object, a string describing the type of error that occurred and an optional exception object, if one occurred. Possible values for the second argument (besides null) are "timeout", "error", "abort", and "parsererror". When an HTTP error occurs, errorThrown receives the textual portion of the HTTP status, such as "Not Found" or "Internal Server Error." As of jQuery 1.5, the error setting can accept an array of functions. Each function will be called in turn. Note: This handler is not called for cross-domain script and cross-domain JSONP requests.

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This is probably caused by the JSON field names not having quotation marks.

Change the JSON structure from:

{welcome:"Welcome"}

to:

{"welcome":"Welcome"}

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You have a JSON object of the exception thrown, in the xhr object. Just use

alert(xhr.responseJSON.Message);

The JSON object expose two other properties: 'ExceptionType' and 'StackTrace'

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I believe the Ajax response handler uses the HTTP status code to check if there was an error.

So if you just throw a Java exception on your server side code but then the HTTP response doesn't have a 500 status code jQuery (or in this case probably the XMLHttpRequest object) will just assume that everything was fine.

I'm saying this because I had a similar problem in ASP.NET where I was throwing something like a ArgumentException("Don't know what to do...") but the error handler wasn't firing.

I then set the Response.StatusCode to either 500 or 200 whether I had an error or not.

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jQuery.parseJSON is useful for success and error.

$.ajax({
    url: "controller/action",
    type: 'POST',
    success: function (data, textStatus, jqXHR) {
        var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(jqXHR.responseText);
        notify(data.toString());
        notify(textStatus.toString());
    },
    error: function (data, textStatus, jqXHR) { notify(textStatus); }
});

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$("#save").click(function(){
    $("#save").ajaxError(function(event,xhr,settings,error){
        $(this).html{'error: ' (xhr ?xhr.status : '')+ ' ' + (error ? error:'unknown') + 'page: '+settings.url);
    });
});

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Throw a new exception on server using:

Response.StatusCode = 500

Response.StatusDescription = ex.Message()

I believe that the StatusDescription is returned to the Ajax call...

Example:

        Try

            Dim file As String = Request.QueryString("file")

            If String.IsNullOrEmpty(file) Then Throw New Exception("File does not exist")

            Dim sTmpFolder As String = "Temp\" & Session.SessionID.ToString()

            sTmpFolder = IO.Path.Combine(Request.PhysicalApplicationPath(), sTmpFolder)

            file = IO.Path.Combine(sTmpFolder, file)

            If IO.File.Exists(file) Then

                IO.File.Delete(file)

            End If

        Catch ex As Exception

            Response.StatusCode = 500

            Response.StatusDescription = ex.Message()

        End Try

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Although it has been many years since this question is asked, I still don't find xhr.responseText as the answer I was looking for. It returned me string in the following format:

"{"error":true,"message":"The user name or password is incorrect"}"

which I definitely don't want to show to the users. What I was looking for is something like below:

alert(xhr.responseJSON.message);

xhr.responseJSON.message gives me the exact message from the Json Object which can be shown to the users.

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$("#fmlogin").submit(function(){
   $("#fmlogin").ajaxError(function(event,xhr,settings,error){
       $("#loading").fadeOut('fast');       
       $("#showdata").fadeIn('slow');   
       $("#showdata").html('Error please, try again later or reload the Page. Reason: ' + xhr.status);
       setTimeout(function() {$("#showdata").fadeOut({"opacity":"0"})} , 5500 + 1000); // delays 1 sec after the previous one
    });
});

If there is any form is submit with validate

simply use the rest of the code

$("#fmlogin").validate({...

... ... });

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First we need to set in web.config:

<serviceBehaviors> 
 <behavior name=""> 
  <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" /> 
    **<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true" />** 
 </behavior> 
</serviceBehaviors>

In addition to that at jquery level in error part you need to parse error response that contains exception like:

.error(function (response, q, t) { 
  var r = jQuery.parseJSON(response.responseText); 
}); 

Then using r.Message you can actully show exception text.

Check complete code: http://www.codegateway.com/2012/04/jquery-ajax-handle-exception-thrown-by.html

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In my case, I just removed HTTP VERB from controller.

    **//[HttpPost]**   ---- just removed this verb
    public JsonResult CascadeDpGetProduct(long categoryId)
    {
       
        List<ProductModel> list = new List<ProductModel>();
        list = dp.DpProductBasedOnCategoryandQty(categoryId);
        return Json(new SelectList(list, "Value", "Text", JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet));
    }

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