RTCDataChannel: error event

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since January 2020.

A WebRTC error event is sent to an RTCDataChannel object's onerror event handler when an error occurs on the data channel.

The RTCErrorEvent object provides details about the error that occurred; see that article for details.

This event is not cancelable and does not bubble.

Syntax

Use the event name in methods like addEventListener(), or set an event handler property.

js
addEventListener("error", (event) => {});

onerror = (event) => {};

Event type

An RTCErrorEvent. Inherits from Event.

Event RTCErrorEvent

Event properties

In addition to the properties listed below, properties from the parent interface, Event, are available.

error Read only

An RTCError object specifying the error which occurred; this object includes the type of error that occurred, and information about where the error occurred (such as which line number in the SDP or what SCTP cause code was at issue).

Examples

js
// Strings for each of the SCTP cause codes found in RFC
// 4960, section 3.3.10:
// https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4960#section-3.3.10

const sctpCauseCodes = [
  "No SCTP error",
  "Invalid stream identifier",
  "Missing mandatory parameter",
  "Stale cookie error",
  "Sender is out of resource (i.e., memory)",
  "Unable to resolve address",
  "Unrecognized SCTP chunk type received",
  "Invalid mandatory parameter",
  "Unrecognized parameters",
  "No user data (SCTP DATA chunk has no data)",
  "Cookie received while shutting down",
  "Restart of an association with new addresses",
  "User-initiated abort",
  "Protocol violation",
];

dc.addEventListener(
  "error",
  (ev) => {
    const err = ev.error;

    console.error("WebRTC error: ", err.message);

    // Handle specific error detail types

    switch (err.errorDetail) {
      case "sdp-syntax-error":
        console.error("    SDP syntax error in line ", err.sdpLineNumber);
        break;
      case "idp-load-failure":
        console.error(
          "    Identity provider load failure: HTTP error ",
          err.httpRequestStatusCode,
        );
        break;
      case "sctp-failure":
        if (err.sctpCauseCode < sctpCauseCodes.length) {
          console.error("    SCTP failure: ", err.sctpCauseCode);
        } else {
          console.error("    Unknown SCTP error");
        }
        break;
      case "dtls-failure":
        if (err.receivedAlert) {
          console.error("    Received DTLS failure alert: ", err.receivedAlert);
        }
        if (err.sentAlert) {
          console.error("    Sent DTLS failure alert: ", err.receivedAlert);
        }
        break;
    }

    // Add source file name and line information

    console.error(
      "    Error in file ",
      err.filename,
      " at line ",
      err.lineNumber,
      ", column ",
      err.columnNumber,
    );
  },
  false,
);

The received event provides details in an RTCError object called error; RTCError is an extension of the DOMException interface. The error's name is RTCError and the message is an error string specified by the WebRTC layer.

Error information is output to the console using console.error(). The message string is always output, as is information about the source file's name, line number, and column number at which the error occurred.

In addition, however, depending on the value of errorDetail, additional information may be output. Each error type has a different set of information output. For example, an SDP syntax error displays the line number of the error within the SDP, and an SCTP error displays a message corresponding to the SCTP cause code. Other error types similarly output appropriate information.

You can also set up an event handler for error events using the RTCDataChannel interface's onerror event handler property:

js
dc.onerror = (ev) => {
  const err = ev.error;

  // …
};

Note: Since RTCError is not one of the legacy errors, the value of RTCError.code is always 0.

Specifications

Specification
WebRTC: Real-Time Communication in Browsers
# event-datachannel-error
WebRTC: Real-Time Communication in Browsers
# dom-rtcdatachannel-onerror

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also