Ultimate guide for Exception handling in Spring Boot applications

A Generic library for handling exceptions in Spring Boot applications, implementing specification Problem Details (RFC7807) for HTTP APIs. Requires Java 17+, Spring boot 3.2.0+ and Jakarta EE 10

Introduction
Installation
Features offered
Controller Advices bundled with library
Spring Configurations
Problem Properties to customize the behaviour
Error Key, the central concept behind error attribute's externalization
Error response characteristics
Message resolvers to externalize error response in properties files
Creating and throwing exceptions in your applications
Stack trace embedded in error response
Cause chains embedded in error response
Customizations of default behaviour
- Customize error response
- Customize or Override advices
Define new advices
Testing support
Example error responses in different scenarios

Introduction

Exception handling is a cross-cutting concern, should be kept separate from business logic and applied declaratively.

A common practice is to create some custom exception classes like some ServiceException and errors code enums, wherein each instance of error code enum represents an error scenario. An exception class could be either checked or unchecked, but handling of exception is no different. For almost all error scenarios unchecked exception can serve the purpose really well, saving developers from explicitly writing try catch blocks and throws clauses. Though not recommended but limited, checked exceptions can be created and thrown from methods where calling programs can take some recovery measures.

Standard way of handling exceptions in Spring is @ControllerAdvice using AOP, following the same principles spring-boot-problem-handler makes available everything related to exception handling for both Spring Web (Servlet) and Spring Webflux (Reactive) Rest applications, so there is no need to define any custom exceptions or custom ControllerAdvice advices into consumer application, all can be done with zero custom code but by specifying error details in properties file.

Installation

Current version: 1.9 Refer to Release notes while upgrading

Add the spring-boot-problem-handler jar to application dependencies. That is all it takes to get a default working exception handling mechanism in a Spring boot application.

Important

Jar is built on java 17. For earlier versions of java, please build from source code.

Maven

<dependency>
    <groupId>io.github.officiallysingh</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-problem-handler</artifactId>
    <version>1.9</version>
</dependency>

Gradle

implementation 'io.github.officiallysingh:spring-boot-problem-handler:1.9'

It does all hard part, A lot of advices are out of box available that are autoconfigured as ControllerAdvices depending on the jars in classpath of consumer application. Even for exceptions for which no advices are defined, respective error response can be specified by messages in properties file, elaborated in Usage section. New custom advice could be required only in cases where it is required to take some data from exception instance to dynamically derive Error key or to use this data to resolve any placeholders in an error message. In such cases consumer application can define their own custom ControllerAdvice's, Any existing advice can be referred to weave the custom advice into the framework.

A default set of ControllerAdvices are always configured irrespective of the fact that whether the application is Spring Web or Spring Webflux. However, few advices are conditional such as for Handling Security, OpenAPI and Dao related exceptions, which are elaborated in their respective sections.

Features

A lot of inbuilt ControllerAdvice's out of box available to handle most common exceptions.
Extendable to add more advices or override existing advices in consumer applications, weaving them into an aligned framework for exception handling.
Customizable Error response structure.
Provides a mechanism to specify error response for any kind of exception without defining any ControllerAdvice.
Works with both Spring Web and Spring Webflux applications.
Customizable to override the default attributes in error response by overriding the same in properties file.
The autoconfigured advices can be disabled or overridden or extended as per needs.

Controller Advices

General advices recommended for all Spring Rest services

These advices are autoconfigured as either bean of type ProblemHandlingWeb or ProblemHandlingWebflux depending on whether application is type Spring Web or Spring Webflux respectively.

General Advice Traits	Produces	Error Key
`ApplicationAdviceTraits`
`├──ApplicationProblemAdviceTrait`	depends	Provided by application while throwing exception
`├──ApplicationExceptionAdviceTrait`	depends	Provided by application while throwing exception
`└──` `ApplicationMultiProblemAdviceTrait`	depends	Provided by application while throwing exception
`GeneralAdviceTraits`
`├──ProblemAdviceTrait`	`500 Internal Server Error`	internal.server.error
`├──ThrowableAdviceTrait`	`500 Internal Server Error`	internal.server.error
`└──` `UnsupportedOperationAdviceTrait`	`501 Not Implemented`	java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException
`HttpAdviceTraits`
`├──HttpMediaTypeNotAcceptableAdviceTrait`	`415 Unsupported Media Type`	media.type.not.acceptable
`├──HttpMediaTypeNotSupportedExceptionAdviceTrait`	`415 Unsupported Media Type`	media.type.not.supported
`├──UnsupportedMediaTypeStatusAdviceTrait`	`415 Unsupported Media Type`	media.type.not.supported
`├──HttpRequestMethodNotSupportedAdviceTrait`	`405 Method Not Allowed`	request.method.not.supported
`├──MethodNotAllowedAdviceTrait`	`405 Method Not Allowed`	method.not.allowed
`├──NotAcceptableStatusAdviceTrait`	`406 Not Acceptable`	org.springframework.web.server.NotAcceptableStatusException
`└──ResponseStatusAdviceTrait`	depends
`IOAdviceTraits`
`├──MessageNotReadableAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	Derived from exception
`├──MultipartAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	org.springframework.web.multipart.MultipartException
`└──MultipartAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	org.springframework.web.multipart.MaxUploadSizeExceededException
`RoutingAdviceTraits`
`├──MissingRequestHeaderAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	Derived from exception
`├──MissingServletRequestParameterAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	Derived from exception
`├──MissingServletRequestPartAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	Derived from exception
`├──NoHandlerFoundAdviceTrait`	`404 Not Found`	no.handler.found
`└──ServletRequestBindingAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	org.springframework.web.bind.ServletRequestBindingException
`ValidationAdviceTraits`
`├──ConstraintViolationAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	Derived from exception
`├──BindAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	Derived from exception
`├──MethodArgumentNotValidAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	Derived from exception
`├──MethodArgumentTypeMismatchAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	Derived from exception
`└──TypeMismatchAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	Derived from exception
`WebExchangeBindAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	Derived from exception

Composite advice traits

Spring Web Advice Traits	Spring Webflux Advice Traits
`ProblemHandlingWeb`	`ProblemHandlingWebflux`
`├──GeneralAdviceTraits`	`├──GeneralAdviceTraits`
`├──HttpAdviceTraits`	`├──HttpAdviceTraits`
`├──IOAdviceTraits`	`├──IOAdviceTraits`
`├──` `RoutingAdviceTraits`	`├──WebExchangeBindAdviceTrait`
`├──` `ValidationAdviceTraits`	`├──ValidationAdviceTraits`
`└──` `ApplicationAdviceTraits`	`└──ApplicationAdviceTraits`

DAO advices

DAO Advice Traits	Produces	Error Key
`DaoAdviceTraits`
`├──``DataIntegrityViolationAdviceTrait`	`500 Internal Server Error`	data.integrity.violation.<Failed DB constraint name>
`└──``DuplicateKeyExceptionAdviceTrait`	`500 Internal Server Error`	data.integrity.violation.<Failed DB constraint name>

These advices are autoconfigured as WebDaoExceptionHandler or WebFluxDaoExceptionHandler for Spring Web and Spring Webflux respectively, if following conditions are true

problem.dao-advice-enabled is not set to false. Its default value is true
If using relation databases then spring-data-jpa jar is detected in classpath and either spring.datasource.url or spring.r2dbc.url is configured
If using MongoDB then spring-data-mongodb jar is detected in classpath and spring.data.mongodb.uri is configured

Note

Database type must be specified in application.properties in case application is using some relational database, it is used to autoconfigure ConstraintNameResolver to extract database constraint name from exception message to derive Error key when database constraint violation exceptions are thrown.

Security advices

Security Advice Traits	Produces	Error Key
`SecurityAdviceTraits`
`├──``AuthenticationAdviceTrait`	`401 Unauthorized`	security.unauthorized
`├──``InsufficientAuthenticationAdviceTrait`	`401 Unauthorized`	security.unauthorized
`└──``AccessDeniedAdviceTrait`	`403 Forbidden`	security.access.denied

These advices are autoconfigured as a bean SecurityExceptionHandler if following conditions are true

spring-security-config jar is detected in classpath
problem.security-advice-enabled is not set to false. Its default value is true

For Spring Web applications ProblemAuthenticationEntryPoint and ProblemAccessDeniedHandler are autoconfigured as authenticationEntryPoint and accessDeniedHandler beans respectively.

But to make it work, the following needs to be done in the application's Spring Security configuration. Refer to example WebSecurityConfiguration

@Autowired
private AuthenticationEntryPoint authenticationEntryPoint;

@Autowired
private AccessDeniedHandler accessDeniedHandler;

@Bean
public SecurityFilterChain securityFilterChain(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
    // Your security configurations
    http.csrf(AbstractHttpConfigurer::disable)
            .authorizeHttpRequests((requests) -> requests
                .requestMatchers("/swagger-resources/**", "/swagger-ui/**", "/swagger-ui.*", "/v3/api-docs", "/v3/api-docs/**", "/webjars/**")
                .permitAll()
//                .requestMatchers(
//                        // Add
//                )
                .permitAll()
                .anyRequest()
                .authenticated()
            );

    if (this.authenticationEntryPoint != null) {
      http.exceptionHandling(
              exceptionHandling ->
                      exceptionHandling.authenticationEntryPoint(this.authenticationEntryPoint));
    }
    if (this.accessDeniedHandler != null) {
      http.exceptionHandling(
              exceptionHandling -> exceptionHandling.accessDeniedHandler(this.accessDeniedHandler));
    }
    
    return http.build();
}

For Spring Webflux applications ProblemServerAuthenticationEntryPoint and ProblemServerAccessDeniedHandler are autoconfigured as authenticationEntryPoint and accessDeniedHandler beans respectively.

But to make it work, the following needs to be done in application Spring Security configuration. Refer to example WebFluxSecurityConfiguration

@Autowired
private ServerAuthenticationEntryPoint authenticationEntryPoint;

@Autowired
private ServerAccessDeniedHandler accessDeniedHandler;

@Bean
SecurityWebFilterChain securityWebFilterChain(final ServerHttpSecurity http) {
    // Your security configurations
    http.csrf(ServerHttpSecurity.CsrfSpec::disable)
            .authorizeExchange((exchanges) -> exchanges
                .pathMatchers("/swagger-resources/**", "/swagger-ui/**", "/swagger-ui.*", "/v3/api-docs", "/v3/api-docs/**", "/webjars/**")
                .permitAll()
//                .pathMatchers(
//                        // Add
//                )
                .permitAll()
                .anyExchange().authenticated()
            );
  
    if (this.authenticationEntryPoint != null) {
      http.exceptionHandling(
              exceptionHandling ->
                      exceptionHandling.authenticationEntryPoint(this.authenticationEntryPoint));
    }
    if (this.accessDeniedHandler != null) {
      http.exceptionHandling(
              exceptionHandling -> exceptionHandling.accessDeniedHandler(this.accessDeniedHandler));
    }
  
    return http.build();
}

OpenAPI validation advice

OpenAPI Validation Advice Traits	Produces	Error Key
`OpenApiValidationAdviceTrait`	`400 Bad Request`	Derived from exception

These advices are autoconfigured as bean OpenApiValidationExceptionHandler if following conditions are true

swagger-request-validator-spring-webmvc-2.34.x.jar is detected in classpath
At least one of problem.open-api.req-validation-enabled or problem.open-api.res-validation-enabled is set as true
A valid OpenAPI Spec is provided as config problem.open-api.path

Note

It is available for Spring Web applications only, not for Spring Webflux application

Configurations

The NoHandlerFoundAdviceTrait in addition also requires the following configuration:

spring.mvc.throw-exception-if-no-handler-found=true

While using Dao advice, set database platform as follows, set value as per the database being used.

spring.jpa.database=POSTGRESQL

Refer to Database for the list of database vendors such as DB2, DERBY, H2, HANA, HSQL, INFORMIX, MYSQL, ORACLE, POSTGRESQL, SQL_SERVER, SYBASE

Note

ConstraintNameResolver is implemented for Postgres, SQL Server and MongoDB only as of now. If any other relational database is used then respective ConstraintNameResolver need to be implemented and defined as a bean.

Make sure to disable the ErrorMvcAutoConfiguration as follows

@EnableAutoConfiguration(exclude = ErrorMvcAutoConfiguration.class)

or in application.properties as follows

spring.autoconfigure.exclude=org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.web.servlet.error.ErrorMvcAutoConfiguration

Specify message source bundles as follows. Make sure to include i18n/problems bundled in the library, as it has default messages for certain exception. And it should be last in the list of basenames, so that it has the lowest priority and any default messages coming from problems.properties can be overridden by specifying the property with different value in application's errors.properties

spring.messages.basename=i18n/errors,i18n/problems
spring.messages.use-code-as-default-message=true

if use-code-as-default-message is set to false and the message is not found in any of the properties file then it will throw NoSuchMessageException complaining that no message is found for given code. So if it is intended to enforce all messages for exceptions to be specified in properties file, set it to false, but not recommended. To be on safer side, it's recommended to keep it true, in that case if some message is not found, the message key is taken as its value, which can be updated later into properties file, once noticed.

Important

Spring boot 3 also provides Problem details support which must not be enabled otherwise it will shadow all ControllerAdvice's provided by this library. By default spring.mvc.problemdetails.enabled is false, so it must not be set to true

Problem Properties

Following are the configurations to customize default behaviour of spring-boot-problem-handler.

problem.enabled=true
problem.type-url=http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html
problem.debug-enabled=false
problem.stacktrace-enabled=false
problem.cause-chains-enabled=false
#problem.jackson-module-enabled=false
#problem.dao-advice-enabled=false
#problem.security-advice-enabled=false
problem.open-api.path=/oas/api.json
problem.open-api.exclude-patterns=/api/states,/api/states/**,/api/employees,/api/employees/**,/problems/**
problem.open-api.req-validation-enabled=true
problem.open-api.res-validation-enabled=false

problem.enabled:- To enable or disable autoconfiguration, default is true. In case consumer applications are interested to avail advices but want full control over configurations, then it can be set to false and required advices can be configured as Spring beans similar to how they are autoconfigured.
problem.type-url:- The base URL for Help page describing errors. For different exceptions respective code for exception is appended to it followed by a #
problem.debug-enabled:- To enable or disable debugging i.e. to get the message resolvers to specify the error messages in properties files. Elaborated in Usage section. Default is false.
problem.stacktrace-enabled:- To enable or disable Stacktraces, default is false. Should only be set to true for debugging purposes only on local or lower environments, otherwise the application internals may be exposed.
problem.cause-chains-enabled:- To enable or disable cause chains, default is false. Elaborated in Usage section.
problem.jackson-module-enabled:- To enable or disable Jackson Problem Module autoconfiguration, default is true. Set it to false in case consumer application needs to define Serialization/Deserialization explicitly. Or if Gson is to be used instead of Jackson. If disabled, the required serializers need to be defined by consumer application.
problem.dao-advice-enabled:- To enable or disable Dao advice autoconfiguration, default is true. Set it to false in case consumer application need to define Dao advice configurations explicitly.
problem.security-advice-enabled:- To enable or disable Security advice autoconfiguration, default is true. Set it to false in case a consumer application needs to define Security advice configurations explicitly.
problem.open-api.path:- OpenAPI Specification path. Ideally should be in classpath and start with/. If not specified, OpenAPI Specification validation is not enabled.
problem.open-api.exclude-patterns:- List of URI Ant patterns to be excluded from OpenAPI specification validation. Default is empty.
problem.open-api.req-validation-enabled:- To enable or disable OpenAPI specification validation for request, default is false.
problem.open-api.res-validation-enabled:- To enable or disable OpenAPI specification validation for response, default is false.

Error Key

The main concept behind specifying the error attributes in properties file is Error key, which is mandatory to be unique for each error scenario. It is either derived or specified by application while throwing exception and used to externalize the error attributes in properties file.

For example, if error key for some exception is some.error.key, then error response attributes can be specified in properties file as follows.

code.some.error.key=some-error
title.some.error.key=Some Error
detail.some.error.key=Something has gone wrong, please look into the logs for details

In case of exceptions for which advices are not defined, status also need to be specified in properties file as follows. It is elaborated in below sections.

status.some.error.key=400

Warning

The derived Error keys may change in cases of code refactoring. Because derived Error keys may contain the class names, method names and class property names or database constraint or index name. So in such case verify and do necessary updates in error message properties files.

When OpenAPI Spec is changed, the error keys for OpenAPI spec validation errors may change.
When controller method name changes or controller argument Object class name or any of its property name changes then jakarta.validation.* violation error keys may change.
When database constraint name or index name changes then any DuplicateKeyException or DataIntegrityViolationException error key may change.

Error response

Following is an example response body for an error.

{
  "type":"http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#XYZ-001",
  "title":"Internal Server Error",
  "status":500,
  "detail":"A job instance already exists and is complete for parameters={'date':'{value=2023-08-13, type=class java.time.LocalDate, identifying=true}'}.  If you want to run this job again, change the parameters.",
  "instance":"/api/myjob",
  "method":"PUT",
  "timestamp":"2023-08-14T20:45:45.737227+05:30",
  "code":"XYZ-001"
}

Response Header when service is configured for Json HttpMessageConverters

content-type: application/problem+json

Response Header when service is configured for XML HttpMessageConverters

content-type: application/problem+xml

Description

type:- A URI reference that identifies the problem type. When dereferenced, it provides human-readable documentation for this error. If not set about:blank is taken as default.
title:- A short, human-readable summary of the error such as Bad Request.
status:- The HTTP status code, int value such as 500.
detail:- A human-readable explanation specific to this occurrence of error.
instance:- The API URI reference where this error has occurred.
method:- HttpMethod for given instance where this error has occurred.
timestamp:- OffsetDateTime of occurrence of this error.
code:- Unique String code for this error, should not contain spaces or special characters except '_' and '-'. Used in type. Commonly used to set unique codes for different business error scenarios.

Message resolvers

To know how to define the error attributes in the properties file, enable debugging as follows.

problem.debug-enabled=true

Now the error response itself would contain the resolvers for respective attributes, as follows. codes in the resolvers could be one or multiple. For example in case of ConstraintViolationException codes would be multiple in order of most specific towards least specific.

{
  "type":"http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#XYZ-001",
  "title":"Internal Server Error",
  "status":500,
  "detail":"A job instance already exists and is complete for parameters={'date':'{value=2023-08-13, type=class java.time.LocalDate, identifying=true}'}.  If you want to run this job again, change the parameters.",
  "instance":"/api/myjob",
  "method":"PUT",
  "timestamp":"2023-08-14T20:51:43.993249+05:30",
  "code":"XYZ-001",
  "codeResolver":{
    "codes":[
      "code.org.springframework.batch.core.repository.JobInstanceAlreadyCompleteException"
    ],
    "defaultMessage":"500",
    "arguments":null
  },
  "titleResolver":{
    "codes":[
      "title.org.springframework.batch.core.repository.JobInstanceAlreadyCompleteException"
    ],
    "defaultMessage":"Internal Server Error",
    "arguments":null
  },
  "detailResolver":{
    "codes":[
      "detail.org.springframework.batch.core.repository.JobInstanceAlreadyCompleteException"
    ],
    "defaultMessage":"A job instance already exists and is complete for parameters={'date':'{value=2023-08-13, type=class java.time.LocalDate, identifying=true}'}.  If you want to run this job again, change the parameters.",
    "arguments":null
  },
  "statusResolver":{
    "codes":[
      "status.org.springframework.batch.core.repository.JobInstanceAlreadyCompleteException"
    ],
    "defaultMessage":"500",
    "arguments":null
  }
}

Respective codes for corresponding attribute can be copied, and a message can be specified for the same in properties file.

Note

org.springframework.batch.core.repository.JobInstanceAlreadyCompleteException i.e. fully qualified name of exception is the Error key in above case. This scenario also covers all the exceptions for which advices are not defined. But additionally HttpStatus need to be specified in properties file as it has not been specified anywhere in code because ControllerAdvice is not defined, if status not given even in properties file HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR is taken as default. Hence the error response can be specified as follows.

status.org.springframework.batch.core.repository.JobInstanceAlreadyCompleteException=409
code.org.springframework.batch.core.repository.JobInstanceAlreadyCompleteException=Some code
title.org.springframework.batch.core.repository.JobInstanceAlreadyCompleteException=Some title
detail.org.springframework.batch.core.repository.JobInstanceAlreadyCompleteException=Some message details

To minimize the number of properties following defaults are taken if HttpStatus is specified as status.(error key) property.

Code is taken as specified HttpStatus's int code e.g., if HttpStatus is given as EXPECTATION_FAILED then the Code default would be 417
Title is taken as specified HttpStatus's reason phrase e.g., if HttpStatus is given as EXPECTATION_FAILED then the Title default would be Expectation Failed
Detail default is taken from thrown exception's exception.getMessage().

Note

status.(error key) property is considered only for exceptions where no explicit advice is defined, otherwise HttpStatus is specified in the java code.

Creating and throwing exceptions

Apart from exceptions thrown by frameworks or java, every application need to throw custom exceptions. ApplicationProblem and ApplicationException classes are available in the library to throw an unchecked or checked exception respectively.

Problems is the central static helper class to create Problem instances and throw either checked or unchecked exceptions, as demonstrated below. It provides multiple fluent methods to build and throw exceptions.

The simplistic way is to just specify a unique error key and HttpStatus.

throw Problems.newInstance("sample.problem").throwAble(HttpStatus.EXPECTATION_FAILED);

Error response attributes code, title and detail are expected from the message source (properties file) available as follows. Notice the Error key sample.problem in the following properties

code.sample.problem=AYX123
title.sample.problem=Some title
detail.sample.problem=Some message details

Warning

It uses Spring's MessageSource to resolve placeholders in message template. You should be aware that the single quote character (') fulfils a special purpose inside message patterns. The single quote is used to represent a section within the message pattern that will not be formatted. A single quote itself must be escaped by using two single quotes ('').

But exceptions come with some default attributes as follows, to minimize the number of properties required to be defined in properties file

If the messages are not found in properties files, defaults are taken as follows.

Code is taken as specified HttpStatus's int code e.g. if HttpStatus is given as EXPECTATION_FAILED then the Code default would be 417
Title is taken as specified HttpStatus's reason phrase e.g. if HttpStatus is given as EXPECTATION_FAILED then the Title default would be Expectation Failed
Detail default is taken as thrown exception's exception.getMessage()

There are multiple other methods available while creating and throwing exceptions in Problems, for details refers to its source code and java docs.

throw Problems.newInstance("sample.problem")
    .defaultDetail("Default details if not found in properties file with parma1: {0} and param2: {1}")
    .detailArgs("P1", "P2")
    .cause(new IllegalStateException("Artificially induced illegal state"))
    .throwAble(HttpStatus.EXPECTATION_FAILED); // .throwAbleChecked(HttpStatus.EXPECTATION_FAILED)

The above code snippet would throw unchecked exception, though not recommended but to throw checked exception, use throwAbleChecked as terminal operation as highlighted in java comment above.

The attributes corresponding to error key sample.problem can be provided in properties file as follows.

code.sample.problem=404
title.sample.problem=Some title
detail.sample.problem=Some details with param one: {0} and param other: {1}

To throw exception with hardcoded attributes.

Problem problem = Problems.newInstance("111", "Dummy", "Hardcode attributes broblem").build();
throw problem;

To programmatically add dynamic attributes to error response at runtime. Notice the method parameter

Problems.newInstance("3456", "Bad Request", "Invalid request received, Please retry with correct input")
    .parameter("additional-attribute", "Some additional attribute").build();
throw problem;

Applications may also define enums implementing ErrorType interface with attributes for error scenarios and creating exceptions as follows. Default error attributes detail, status etc. can be customized in properties file for given errorKey, otherwise the enum only is enough.

@Getter
public enum AppErrors implements ErrorType {

  REMOTE_HOST_NOT_AVAILABLE("remote.host.not.available",
      "Looks like something wrong with remote host: {0}", HttpStatus.SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE);
  // All other error scenarios could be added here
  
  private final String errorKey;
  private final String defaultDetail;
  private final HttpStatus status;

  AppErrors(final String errorKey, final String defaultDetail, final HttpStatus status) {
    this.errorKey = errorKey;
    this.defaultDetail = defaultDetail;
    this.status = status;
  }
}

ApplicationProblem problem = Problems.newInstance(AppErrors.REMOTE_HOST_NOT_AVAILABLE)
        .detailArgs("http://some.remote.host.com").throwAble();
throw problem;

Sometimes it is not desirable to throw exceptions as they occur, but to collect them to throw at a later point in execution. Or to throw multiple exceptions together.That can be done as follows.

ApplicationException exceptionOne = Problems.newInstance("sample.problem.one").throwAbleChecked();
ApplicationProblem exceptionTwo = Problems.newInstance(AppErrors.REMOTE_HOST_NOT_AVAILABLE)
        .detailArgs("http://some.remote.host.com").throwAble();

MultiProblem problems = Problems.ofExceptions(HttpStatus.MULTI_STATUS, exceptionOne, exceptionTwo);

Exception exceptionThree = new IllegalStateException("Just for testing exception");
problems.add(exceptionThree);

Problem problem = Problems.newInstance("111", "Dummy", "Hardcode attributes broblem").build();
problems.add(problem);

throw problems;

HttpStatus can also be set over custom exception as follows, the same would reflect in error response and other error attributes default would be derived by given HttpStatus attribute in @ResponseStatus

@ResponseStatus(HttpStatus.NOT_IMPLEMENTED)
private static final class MyException extends RuntimeException {
    public MyException() {
    }

    public MyException(final Throwable cause) {
        super(cause);
    }
}

Stack traces

Set following property to true to get the stacktrace in error response, should only be used on local for debugging purpose and strictly prohibited elsewhere as it may expose application internals.

problem.stacktrace-enabled=true

Example response

{
  "type":"http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#XYZ-001",
  "title":"Internal Server Error",
  "status":500,
  "detail":"A job instance already exists and is complete for parameters={'date':'{value=2023-08-13, type=class java.time.LocalDate, identifying=true}'}.  If you want to run this job again, change the parameters.",
  "instance":"/api/myjob",
  "method":"PUT",
  "timestamp":"2023-08-14T21:01:56.378749+05:30",
  "code":"XYZ-001",
  "statcktrace":[
    "org.springframework.batch.core.repository.support.SimpleJobRepository.createJobExecution(SimpleJobRepository.java:159)",
    "java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)",
    "java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:77)",
    "java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)",
    "java.base/java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:568)",
    ".......",
    "..............",
    "org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:659)",
    "org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)",
    "java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:833)"
  ]
}

Cause chains

An exception may have a cause, which in tern may also have another and so on. The complete cause chain can also be viewed in error response, again it should just be used for local debugging purposes only.

problem.cause-chains-enabled=true

Example response

{
  "type":"http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#XYZ-001",
  "title":"Not Implemented",
  "status":501,
  "detail":"expected",
  "instance":"/problems/handler-throwable-annotated-cause",
  "method":"GET",
  "timestamp":"2023-08-14T22:09:56.284473+05:30",
  "code":"XYZ-001",
  "cause":{
    "code":"501",
    "title":"Not Implemented",
    "detail":"Something has gone wrong",
    "cause":{
      "code":"501",
      "title":"Not Implemented"
    }
  }
}

Customizations

Customize error response

The error response is totally customizable by defining a bean of type ErrorResponseBuilder demonstrated as follows.

If it is required to customize the error response attribute names, it can be done by implementing custom serialization for ProblemDetail using Jackson Mixin.
Or define custom error response class as follows.

@Getter
@AllArgsConstructor(staticName = "of")
public class CustomErrorResponse {
    private HttpStatus status;
    private String message;
}

And define custom error response builder class bean to return the custom error response as follows.

For Spring Web applications

@Component
class CustomErrorResponseBuilder implements ErrorResponseBuilder<NativeWebRequest, ResponseEntity<CustomErrorResponse>> {

    @Override
    public ResponseEntity<CustomErrorResponse> buildResponse(final Throwable throwable, final NativeWebRequest request,
                                                           final HttpStatus status, final HttpHeaders headers, final Problem problem) {
        CustomErrorResponse errorResponse = CustomErrorResponse.of(status, problem.getDetail());
        ResponseEntity<CustomErrorResponse> responseEntity = ResponseEntity
            .status(status).headers(headers).contentType(MediaTypes.PROBLEM).body(errorResponse);
        return responseEntity;
    }
}

For Spring Webflux applications

@Component
class CustomErrorResponseBuilder implements ErrorResponseBuilder<ServerWebExchange, Mono<ResponseEntity<CustomErrorResponse>>> {

    @Override
    public Mono<ResponseEntity<CustomErrorResponse>> buildResponse(final Throwable throwable, final ServerWebExchange request,
                                                           final HttpStatus status, final HttpHeaders headers, final Problem problem) {
        CustomErrorResponse errorResponse = CustomErrorResponse.of(status, problem.getDetail());
        ResponseEntity<CustomErrorResponse> responseEntity = ResponseEntity
            .status(status).headers(headers).contentType(MediaTypes.PROBLEM).body(errorResponse);
        return Mono.just(responseEntity);
    }
}

Customize or Override advices

Any autoconfigured advice can be customized by overriding the same and providing a different implementation. Make sure to add annotation @Order(Ordered.HIGHEST_PRECEDENCE) over the class, It makes this handler to take precedence over the fallback advice which handles Throwable i.e. for all exceptions for which no ControllerAdvices are defined.
In case of Constraint Violation exceptions, the errorKey is derived from the field name, but in cases where field name is customized using @JsonProperty, MethodArgumentNotValidException's advice may need to be customized to use @JsonProperty instead of class's field name in dynamically generated erroKey as follows

For Spring Web applications

@ControllerAdvice
@Order(Ordered.HIGHEST_PRECEDENCE) // Important to note
class CustomMethodArgumentNotValidExceptionHandler implements MethodArgumentNotValidAdviceTrait<NativeWebRequest, ResponseEntity<ProblemDetail>> {

    @Override
    public ViolationVM handleFieldError(final FieldError fieldError, final Throwable exception) {
        String field = fieldError.getField();

        try {
            if (fieldError.contains(ConstraintViolation.class)) {
                final ConstraintViolation<?> violation = fieldError.unwrap(ConstraintViolation.class);
                final Field declaredField = violation.getRootBeanClass().getDeclaredField(fieldError.getField());
                final JsonProperty annotation = declaredField.getAnnotation(JsonProperty.class);

                if (annotation != null && annotation.value() != null && !annotation.value().isEmpty()) {
                    field = annotation.value();
                }
            }
        } catch (Exception ignored) {
            // Ignored
        }

        HttpStatus status = defaultConstraintViolationStatus();
        ProblemMessageSourceResolver codeResolver =
                ProblemMessageSourceResolver.of(
                        ProblemConstant.CONSTRAINT_VIOLATION_CODE_CODE_PREFIX, fieldError, status.value());
        ProblemMessageSourceResolver messageResolver =
                ProblemMessageSourceResolver.of(
                        ProblemConstant.CONSTRAINT_VIOLATION_DETAIL_CODE_PREFIX, fieldError);
        return createViolation(codeResolver, messageResolver, field);
    }
}

For Spring Webflux applications

@ControllerAdvice
@Order(Ordered.HIGHEST_PRECEDENCE) // Important to note
class CustomMethodArgumentNotValidExceptionHandler implements MethodArgumentNotValidAdviceTrait<ServerWebExchange, Mono<ResponseEntity<ProblemDetail>>> {

  public Mono<ResponseEntity<ProblemDetail>> handleMethodArgumentNotValid(final MethodArgumentNotValidException exception, final ServerWebExchange request) {
    // It remains the same as implemented for Spring web, above
  }
}

Define new advices

There should not be any need to create any custom exception hence new advices, but if there is a pressing need to do so, custom exception can be created and corresponding custom ControllerAdvice implementing AdviceTrait can be defined for the same, though not recommended. Following example demonstrates new advice for some custom exception MyCustomException.

For Spring Web applications

@ControllerAdvice
@Order(Ordered.HIGHEST_PRECEDENCE) // Important to note
public class MyCustomAdvice implements AdviceTrait<NativeWebRequest, ResponseEntity<ProblemDetail>> {

    @ExceptionHandler
    public ResponseEntity<ProblemDetail> handleMyCustomException(final MyCustomException exception, final NativeWebRequest request) {
        // Custome logic to set the error response 
        Problem problem = Problem.code(String.valueOf(HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST.value())).title(HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST.getReasonPhrase())
            .detail(exception.getMessage).build();
        return create(exception, request, HttpStatus.BAD_REQUEST,
            problem);
    }
}

For Spring Webflux applications

@ControllerAdvice
@Order(Ordered.HIGHEST_PRECEDENCE) // Important to note
public class MyCustomAdvice implements AdviceTrait<ServerWebExchange, Mono<ResponseEntity<ProblemDetail>>> {
    
    @ExceptionHandler
    public Mono<ResponseEntity<ProblemDetail>> handleMyCustomException(final MyCustomException exception, final ServerWebExchange request) {
        // It remains the same as implemented for Spring web, above
    }
}

Testing support

Following beans are autoconfigured for exception handling

Configuration class	Spring Web	Spring Webflux
`ProblemMessageProviderConfig`	✅	✅
`ProblemBeanRegistry`	✅	✅
`ProblemJacksonConfiguration`	✅	✅
`ProblemDaoConfiguration`	✅	✅
`ProblemWebAutoConfiguration`	✅	❌
`WebExceptionHandler`	✅	❌
`WebSecurityExceptionHandler`	✅	❌
`WebDaoExceptionHandler`	✅	❌
`OpenApiValidationExceptionHandler`	✅	❌
`ProblemWebfluxAutoConfiguration`	❌	✅
`WebFluxExceptionHandler`	❌	✅
`WebFluxSecurityExceptionHandler`	❌	✅
`WebFluxDaoExceptionHandler`	❌	✅

But the autoconfiguration may not take effect while running Junit test cases, So required configuration classes could be imported for Controllers test cases, as follows

For Spring Web applications

@TestConfiguration
@ImportAutoConfiguration(
    classes = {
      ProblemBeanRegistry.class,
      ProblemMessageProviderConfig.class,
      ProblemJacksonConfiguration.class,
      ProblemWebAutoConfiguration.class,
      WebExceptionHandler.class
      // WebSecurityExceptionHandler.class // If security is enabled 
      // OpenApiValidationExceptionHandler.class // If OpenAPI validation is enabled     
    })
public class WebTestConfiguration {
  
}

Notice @ImportAutoConfiguration(classes = {WebTestConfiguration.class})

@WebMvcTest(MyController.class)
@ImportAutoConfiguration(classes = {WebTestConfiguration.class})
class StateControllerTest {

  @Autowired
  private MockMvc mockMvc;

  @MockBean
  private MyService myService;
  
  @Test
  @DisplayName("Test Create Resource successfully")
  public void testCreateResource_Success() throws Exception {

  }
}

Similarly for Spring Webflux applications, import following configuration class @ImportAutoConfiguration(classes = {WebFluxTestConfiguration.class}) in Controllers test cases

@TestConfiguration
@ImportAutoConfiguration(
    classes = {
      ProblemBeanRegistry.class,
      ProblemMessageProviderConfig.class,
      ProblemJacksonConfiguration.class,
      ProblemWebfluxAutoConfiguration.class,
      WebFluxExceptionHandler.class
      // WebFluxSecurityExceptionHandler.class // If security is enabled 
    })
public class WebFluxTestConfiguration {
  
}

Example error responses

Following are example error responses in different scenarios. The error response attributes code, title and detail can be customized for each error by specifying the same in errors.properties file for different error keys which you can get by setting problem.debug-enabled=true in application.properties file

Constraint violations

Jakarta Constraint violations error

{
  "type": "http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#constraint-violations",
  "title": "Bad Request",
  "status": 400,
  "detail": "Constraint violations has happened, please correct the request and try again",
  "instance": "/problems/handler-constraint-violation",
  "method": "POST",
  "timestamp": "2023-10-29T16:41:59.876471+05:30",
  "code": "constraint-violations",
  "violations": [
    {
      "code": "400",
      "detail": "User name length should be between 3 and 10",
      "propertyPath": "name"
    },
    {
      "code": "400",
      "detail": "Address state name is required",
      "propertyPath": "address.state"
    },
    {
      "code": "400",
      "detail": "User designation length should be between 2 and 5",
      "propertyPath": "designation"
    }
  ]
}

PostgresDB Unique constraint violation error

{
  "type": "http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#500",
  "title": "Internal Server Error",
  "status": 500,
  "detail": "Employee name must be unique, a record with given name already exists",
  "instance": "/api/employees",
  "method": "POST",
  "timestamp": "2023-10-29T16:44:10.917194+05:30",
  "code": "500"
}

MongoDB Unique constraint violation error

{
  "type": "http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#500",
  "title": "Internal Server Error",
  "status": 500,
  "detail": "State name must be unique",
  "instance": "/api/states",
  "method": "POST",
  "timestamp": "2023-10-29T16:44:44.806613+05:30",
  "code": "500"
}

Invalid Query parameters

{
  "type": "http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#constraint-violations",
  "title": "Bad Request",
  "status": 400,
  "detail": "Constraint violations has happened, please correct the request and try again",
  "instance": "/problems/handler-invalid-query-strings",
  "method": "GET",
  "timestamp": "2023-10-29T14:51:37.889537+05:30",
  "code": "constraint-violations",
  "violations": [
    {
      "code": "400",
      "detail": "must be greater than or equal to 0",
      "propertyPath": "page"
    }
  ]
}

Invalid format error

{
  "type": "http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#400",
  "title": "Bad Request",
  "status": 400,
  "detail": "Invalid date time value or format. Expected a valid date time in ISO format",
  "instance": "/problems/handler-datetime-conversion",
  "method": "GET",
  "timestamp": "2023-10-29T16:05:09.953099+05:30",
  "code": "400",
  "propertyPath": "dateTime"
}

File upload max size exceeds error

{
  "type": "http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#400",
  "title": "Bad Request",
  "status": 400,
  "detail": "Upload file size exceeded the maximum allowed limit: 10485760B",
  "instance": "/problems/uploadfile",
  "method": "POST",
  "timestamp": "2023-10-29T14:31:33.073971+05:30",
  "code": "400"
}

Spring framework thrown exceptions

Invalid Media type error

{
  "type": "http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#415",
  "title": "Unsupported Media Type",
  "status": 415,
  "detail": "Media Type: application/xml Not Acceptable, Supported Media Types are: application/json",
  "instance": "/problems/handler-json-body",
  "method": "POST",
  "timestamp": "2023-10-29T14:45:47.467268+05:30",
  "code": "415"
}

Method not allowed error

{
  "type": "http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#405",
  "title": "Method Not Allowed",
  "status": 405,
  "detail": "Requested Method: POST not allowed, allowed methods are: GET, PUT",
  "instance": "/problems/handler-datetime-conversion",
  "method": "POST",
  "timestamp": "2023-10-29T16:15:08.916369+05:30",
  "code": "405"
}

Programmatically thrown exceptions

Any unhandled Throwable

{
  "type": "http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#500",
  "title": "Internal Server Error",
  "status": 500,
  "detail": "Expected argument invalid",
  "instance": "/problems/handler-throwable",
  "method": "GET",
  "timestamp": "2023-10-29T14:49:40.998497+05:30",
  "code": "500"
}

Error with dynamic additional attributes

{
  "type": "http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#3456",
  "title": "Bad Request",
  "status": 400,
  "detail": "Invalid request received, Please retry with correct input",
  "instance": "/problems/throw-problem-with-additional-attribute",
  "method": "GET",
  "timestamp": "2023-10-29T16:24:37.976724+05:30",
  "code": "3456",
  "additional-attribute": "Some additional attribute"
}

Multiple errors

{
  "type": "http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#207",
  "title": "Multi-Status",
  "status": 207,
  "detail": "Multi-Status",
  "instance": "/problems/throw-multiple-problems",
  "method": "GET",
  "timestamp": "2023-10-29T16:22:53.363785+05:30",
  "code": "207",
  "errors": [
    {
      "code": "500",
      "title": "Internal Server Error",
      "detail": "Sample error message defined in 'errors.properties'"
    },
    {
      "code": "503",
      "title": "Service Unavailable",
      "detail": "Looks like something wrong with remote host: http://some.remote.host.com"
    },
    {
      "code": "3456",
      "title": "Bad Request",
      "detail": "Invalid request received, Please retry with correct input",
      "additional-attribute": "Some additional attribute"
    },
    {
      "code": "500",
      "title": "Internal Server Error",
      "detail": "Just for testing exception"
    },
    {
      "code": "111",
      "title": "Dummy",
      "detail": "Hardcode attributes broblem"
    }
  ]
}

OpenAPI Specification violation error

{
  "type": "http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#constraint-violations",
  "title": "Bad Request",
  "status": 400,
  "detail": "Constraint violations has happened, please correct the request and try again",
  "instance": "/api/pets",
  "method": "POST",
  "timestamp": "2023-10-29T16:06:18.335463+05:30",
  "code": "constraint-violations",
  "violations": [
    {
      "code": "400",
      "detail": "[Path '/id'] Numeric instance is lower than the required minimum (minimum: 1, found: 0)",
      "propertyPath": "id"
    }
  ]
}

Security error

{
  "type": "http://localhost:8080/problems/help.html#401",
  "title": "Unauthorized",
  "status": 401,
  "detail": "Either Authorization header bearer token is missing or invalid",
  "instance": "/api/employees/1",
  "method": "GET",
  "timestamp": "2023-10-29T16:08:40.466566+05:30",
  "code": "401"
}

Licence

Open source The MIT License

Authors and acknowledgment

Rajveer Singh, In case you find any issues or need any support, please email me at [email protected]. Please give me a ⭐ if you find it helpful.

Credits and references

Inspired and taken base code from Zalando Problem libraries

Refer to problem-handler-web-demo and problem-handler-webflux-demo as examples to see usage and example error responses for different kind of errors in Spring Web and Spring Webflux application respectively.

Known Issues

If an application uses multiple vendor relational databases then the ConstraintNameResolver may not work properly, needs further testing. For example, if it is using Postgres and SQL Server both.

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tooling		tooling
.gitignore		.gitignore
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
mvnw		mvnw
mvnw.cmd		mvnw.cmd
pom.xml		pom.xml

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Ultimate guide for Exception handling in Spring Boot applications

Table of Contents

Introduction

Installation

Features

Controller Advices

General advices recommended for all Spring Rest services

DAO advices

Security advices

OpenAPI validation advice

Configurations

Problem Properties

Error Key

Error response

Message resolvers

Creating and throwing exceptions

Stack traces

Cause chains

Customizations

Customize error response

Customize or Override advices

Define new advices

Testing support

Example error responses

Constraint violations

Jakarta Constraint violations error

PostgresDB Unique constraint violation error

MongoDB Unique constraint violation error

Invalid Query parameters

Invalid format error

File upload max size exceeds error

Spring framework thrown exceptions

Invalid Media type error

Method not allowed error

Programmatically thrown exceptions

Any unhandled Throwable

Error with dynamic additional attributes

Multiple errors

OpenAPI Specification violation error

Security error

Licence

Authors and acknowledgment

Credits and references

Known Issues

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