AJAX call doesn't go into "error:" block if the API server returns http 500

Question

I want to implement a retry logic in my javascript code. This is how I'm calling the API:

$.ajax({
            url: api_url + 'report',
            type: 'GET',
            dataType: 'json',
            async: false,
            tryCount : 0,
            retryLimit : 3,

            headers: {
                "Authorization": "Basic " + btoa(api_username + ":" + api_pass)
            },

            data: {start: start_date, end: end_date},
            success: function(result) {
                data = result.results;
                console.log("success");
            },
            error : function(xhr, textStatus, errorThrown ) {
                console.log("in error");
                if (textStatus == 'timeout') {
                    this.tryCount++;
                    if (this.tryCount <= this.retryLimit) {
                        //try again
                        console.log("try count:");
                        console.log(this.tryCount);
                        $.ajax(this);
                        return;
                    }            
                    return;
                }
                if (xhr.status == 500) {
                    console.log("still 500");
                } else {
                    console.log("still !500");
                }
            }
        });

So when there are issues with the server and it returns http 500 then still my control in the above JS file doesn't go into the "error:" block and this line: "console.log("in error");" doesnt get printed on the console.

How can I correctly implement a retry logic in my code in case my server returns 500 then it should keep on retrying for some x amount of times?

Have you tried using [statusCode](http://stackoverflow.com/a/6700873/1022914)? — Mikey, Jun 13 '16 at 05:17

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 13 '16 at 03:16

500 error generally means that something is wrong with backend server. So it doesn't get into error block of client JavaScript. I don't think there is anything you can do. But in general you can always ask backend developers to do better error handling and return apt error response if possible.

AJAX call doesn't go into "error:" block if the API server returns http 500

1 Answers1