Spring Boot Exception does not show the reason/description

Question

I would like to through an exception in spring boot that is descriptive and has a reason included ie. "Dog not found". At the moment I get the exception but it is generic:

Whitelabel Error Page
This application has no explicit mapping for /error, so you are seeing this as a fallback.

Tue Apr 20 09:32:07 CEST 2021
There was an unexpected error (type=Not Found, status=404).

The error is thrown from the @Service method implementation:

@Service
public class DogServiceImpl implements DogService {
    @Autowired
    DogRepository dogRepository;

    public String retrieveDogBreedById(Long id){

        Optional<String> optionalBreed = Optional.ofNullable(dogRepository.findBreedById(id));
        String breed = optionalBreed.orElseThrow(DogNotFoundException::new);
        return breed;

    };

And here is my exception:

@ResponseStatus(value= HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND, reason="Dog not found")
public class DogNotFoundException extends RuntimeException{
    public DogNotFoundException() {
    }

    public DogNotFoundException(String message) {
        super(message);
    }
}

I am using @RestController for a REST API

Are you using `@RestController` for a REST API, or `@Controller` for a web (Thymeleaf?) API? — Wim Deblauwe, Apr 20 '21 at 08:23

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 20 '21 at 08:30

2

The Error Handling Spring Boot Starter allows to very easily do this. See https://foojay.io/today/better-error-handling-for-your-spring-boot-rest-apis/ for a quick overview or https://wimdeblauwe.github.io/error-handling-spring-boot-starter/ for the full docs.

If you just throw DogNotFoundException when defined like this:

@ResponseStatus(value= HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND)
public class DogNotFoundException extends RuntimeException{
    public DogNotFoundException() {
      super("Dog not found");
    }

    public DogNotFoundException(String message) {
        super(message);
    }
}

, then the library will ensure the following response by default:

{
  "code":"DOG_NOT_FOUND",
  "message":"Dog not found"
}

(Disclaimer: I am the author of the library)

answered Apr 20 '21 at 08:30

Wim Deblauwe

25,113
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The error is thrown from a @Service method in my code (pls see the edited initial description). I am still not seeing the error description when the error is thrown. – Ana Sustic Apr 20 '21 at 08:44
That should work. Do you have a small reproducer I can take a look at? – Wim Deblauwe Apr 20 '21 at 08:55
Thanks so much in advance. It is this repo https://github.com/anuschka/restapi/tree/master/dog – Ana Sustic Apr 20 '21 at 09:18
I don't see the library added in the `pom.xml` of your project? – Wim Deblauwe Apr 20 '21 at 09:22
Is SpringBoot not doing it out of the box? – Ana Sustic Apr 20 '21 at 09:24
1

No, that is why I have created this library. You need to [add it to your Maven pom.xml](https://wimdeblauwe.github.io/error-handling-spring-boot-starter/#add-the-library-to-your-project). – Wim Deblauwe Apr 20 '21 at 10:05

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 26 '21 at 14:37

I solved it with using @ControllerAdvice which allows to handle exceptions across the whole application in one global handling component.

@ControllerAdvice
public class ControllerAdvisor extends ResponseEntityExceptionHandler {
    @ExceptionHandler(DogNotFoundException.class)
    public ResponseEntity<Object> handleDogNotFoundException(
            DogNotFoundException ex, WebRequest request) {

        Map<String, Object> body = new LinkedHashMap<>();

        body.put("message", "Dog not found");
        body.put("timestamp", LocalDateTime.now());

        return new ResponseEntity<>(body, HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND);
    }

}

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 05 '23 at 20:30

0

Check the spring boot version.

You need add server.error.include-message = always in the application.properties

See

Spring Boot RestController, On Error Status Response Body, Message of Error is empty

edited Jan 05 '23 at 20:30

Harsh

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answered Jan 04 '23 at 19:56

user20930846

1

Spring Boot Exception does not show the reason/description

3 Answers3