Error Handling

If your query or mutation happens to throw an error when using fetchBaseQuery, it will be returned in the error property of the respective hook.

Query Error
function PostsList() {
const { data, error } = useGetPostsQuery();
return (
<div>
{error.status} {JSON.stringify(error.data)}
</div>
);
}
Mutation Error
function AddPost() {
const [addPost, { error }] = useAddPostMutation();
return (
<div>
{error.status} {JSON.stringify(error.data)}
</div>
);
}
tip

If you need to access the error or success payload immediately after a mutation, you can chain .unwrap().

Using .unwrap
addPost({ id: 1, name: 'Example' })
.unwrap()
.then((payload) => console.log('fulfilled', payload))
.catch((error) => console.error('rejected', error));
Manually selecting an error
function PostsList() {
const { error } = useSelector(api.endpoints.getPosts.select());
return (
<div>
{error.status} {JSON.stringify(error.data)}
</div>
);
}

Errors with a custom baseQuery

By default, RTK Query expects you to return two possible objects:

  1. Expected success result format
    return { data: { first_name: 'Randy', last_name: 'Banana' };
  2. Expected error result format
    return { error: { status: 500, data: { message: 'Failed because of reasons' } };
note

This format is required so that RTK Query can infer the return types for your responses.

As an example, this what a very basic axios-based baseQuery utility could look like:

Basic axios baseQuery
const axiosBaseQuery = (
{ baseUrl }: { baseUrl: string } = { baseUrl: '' }
): BaseQueryFn<
{
url: string;
method: AxiosRequestConfig['method'];
data?: AxiosRequestConfig['data'];
},
unknown,
unknown
> => async ({ url, method, data }) => {
try {
const result = await axios({ url: baseUrl + url, method, data });
return { data: result.data };
} catch (axiosError) {
let err = axiosError as AxiosError;
return { error: { status: err.response?.status, data: err.response?.data } };
}
};
const api = createApi({
baseQuery: axiosBaseQuery({
baseUrl: 'http://example.com',
}),
endpoints(build) {
return {
query: build.query({ query: () => ({ url: '/query' }) }),
mutation: build.mutation({ query: () => ({ url: '/mutation', method: 'post' }) }),
};
},
});

Ultimately, you can choose whatever library you prefer to use with your baseQuery, but it's important that you return the correct response format. If you haven't tried fetchBaseQuery yet, give it a chance!

Retrying on Error

RTK Query exports a utility called retry that you can wrap the baseQuery in your API definition with. It defaults to 5 attempts with a basic exponential backoff.

The default behavior would retry at these intervals:

  1. 600ms * random(0.4, 1.4)
  2. 1200ms * random(0.4, 1.4)
  3. 2400ms * random(0.4, 1.4)
  4. 4800ms * random(0.4, 1.4)
  5. 9600ms * random(0.4, 1.4)
Retry every request 5 times by default
// maxRetries: 5 is the default, and can be omitted. Shown for documentation purposes.
const staggeredBaseQuery = retry(fetchBaseQuery({ baseUrl: '/' }), { maxRetries: 5 });
export const api = createApi({
baseQuery: staggeredBaseQuery,
endpoints: (build) => ({
getPosts: build.query<PostsResponse, void>({
query: () => ({ url: 'posts' }),
}),
getPost: build.query<PostsResponse, void>({
query: (id: string) => ({ url: `posts/${id}` }),
extraOptions: { maxRetries: 8 }, // You can override the retry behavior on each endpoint
}),
}),
});
export const { useGetPostsQuery, useGetPostQuery } = api;

In the event that you didn't want to retry on a specific endpoint, you can just set maxRetries: 0.

info

It is possible for a hook to return data and error at the same time. By default, RTK Query will keep whatever the last 'good' result was in data until it can be updated or garbage collected.

Bailing out of errors

retry.fail

TODO
baseBaseQuery.mockImplementation((input) => {
retry.fail(error);
return { data: `this won't happen` };
});
const baseQuery = retry(baseBaseQuery);
const api = createApi({
baseQuery,
endpoints: (build) => ({
q1: build.query({
query: () => {},
}),
}),
});

Handling errors at a macro level

There are quite a few ways that you can manage your errors, and in some cases, you may want to show a generic toast notification for any async error. Being that RTK Query is built on top of Redux and Redux-Toolkit, you can easily add a middleware to your store for this purpose.

tip

Redux-Toolkit released matching utilities in v1.5 that we can leverage for a lot of custom behaviors.

Error catching middleware
import { MiddlewareAPI, isRejectedWithValue } from '@reduxjs/toolkit';
import { toast } from 'your-cool-library';
/**
* Log a warning and show a toast!
*/
export const rtkQueryErrorLogger = (api: MiddlewareAPI) => (next) => (action) => {
// RTK Query uses `createAsyncThunk` from redux-toolkit under the hood, so we're able to utilize these use matchers!
if (isRejectedWithValue(action)) {
console.warn('We got a rejected action!');
toast.warn({ title: 'Async error!', message: action.error.data.message });
}
return next(action);
};