API:Errors and warnings
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This page is part of the MediaWiki action API documentation. |
MediaWiki action API
- Introduction and quick start
- FAQ
- Tutorial
- Formats
- Error reporting
- Restricting usage
- Cross-site requests
- Authentication
- Queries
- Searching (by title, content, coordinates...)
- Parsing wikitext and expanding templates
- Purging pages' caches
- Parameter information
- Changing wiki content
- Watchlist feed
- Wikidata
- Extensions
- Using the API in MediaWiki and extensions
- Miscellaneous
- Implementation
- Client code
- Asserting
If something goes wrong in an API request, an error or a warning will be thrown (although the HTTP response will usually still be 200 OK). Warnings are thrown for non-fatal conditions such as invalid parameters, whereas errors are only thrown for fatal conditions.
Contents
Warnings[edit | edit source]
Warnings are output in the following format:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<api>
<warnings>
<query>Warning text
Another warning</query>
<info>A warning from prop=info</info>
</warnings>
</api>
As shown in the example, warnings are grouped by the name of the module that caused them. Multiple warnings from the same module are separated by a newline.
Disabled submodules[edit | edit source]
Disabled action=query submodules will always throw the following warning:
- The "modulename" module has been disabled.
Missing module warnings[edit | edit source]
If you specify a module in a multi-value list, such as a list, meta, or prop list of query submodules, and the module is not present on a wiki, for example it is implemented by an extension that isn't loaded, then requesting throws the warning "Unrecognized value for parameter ..." and possibly additional warnings for the submodule's parameters. For example for a list query submodule, raremodule, a query such as
| Result |
|---|
{
"warnings": {
"main": {
"*": "Unrecognized parameter: 'rmparam'"
},
"query": {
"*": "Unrecognized value for parameter 'list': raremodule"
}
}
}
|
returns
- "Unrecognized value for parameter 'list': raremodule"
See also Missing module errors below
You can check to see if a module is available before invoking it, see [How do I] check if an API module is available? in the FAQ.
Parameter validation warnings[edit | edit source]
The MediaWiki API may return the following warnings when validating parameters of any API module. paramname is replaced by the name of the parameter.
- Too many values supplied for parameter 'paramname': the limit is limit
- Unrecognized value for parameter 'paramname': value
- Unrecognized values for parameter 'paramname': value1, value2, value3
Errors[edit | edit source]
The MediaWiki API returns errors in the following structure (shown for format=xml):
<error code="codestring" info="info text" />
Where codestring is a short error code (which need not be unique to the error) and info text is a more elaborate description of the error (which should be unique). Also, it returns the error code in a MediaWiki-API-Error HTTP header. For an example error response or to test your client's error handling, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=blah
Note that when viewing errors in pretty-print formats, the API help will be returned inside the <error> element. To save bandwidth, this doesn't happen for non-pretty-print formats; if you specifically want the help text in a non-pretty-print format, use action=help.
Error messages in the documentation[edit | edit source]
Error messages are documented as follows:
| Code | Info |
|---|---|
| apparams | prlevel may not be used without prtype |
Which corresponds to:
<error code="apparams" info="prlevel may not be used without prtype" />
Disabled modules[edit | edit source]
Disabled action= modules will always fail with the following error:
| Code | Info |
|---|---|
| moduledisabled | The "modulename" module has been disabled. |
Missing module errors[edit | edit source]
If you specify a module as the single value of a parameter such as action and it is not present on a wiki, for example it is implemented by an extension that isn't loaded, then the request throws the error
| Code | Info |
|---|---|
| unknown_action | Unrecognized value for parameter 'action': modulename |
You can check to see if a module is available before invoking it, see [How do I] check if an API module is available? in the FAQ.
See also Missing module warnings above.
Parameter validation errors[edit | edit source]
The MediaWiki API can "throw" the following errors when validating parameters of any API modules.
| Code | Info |
|---|---|
| multival_paramname | Only one of 'value1', 'value2', 'value3' is allowed for parameter 'paramname' |
| unknown_paramname | Unrecognized value for parameter 'paramname': value |
| paramname | paramname may not be set to less than min (set to value) |
| paramname | paramname may not be set over max (set to value) for bots and sysops |
| paramname | paramname may not be set over max (set to value) for users |
| badtimestamp_paramname | Invalid value value for timestamp parameter paramname |
| baduser_paramname | Invalid value value for user parameter paramname |
| invalidparammix | The parameters param1, param2, param3 cannot be used together |
| missingparam | One of the parameters param1, param2, param3 is required |
| _badcontinue | Invalid continue param. You should pass the original value returned by the previous query |
Standard error messages[edit | edit source]
Some generic error messages are shared among modules. If a module can throw these errors, that's explicitly mentioned in its Possible errors section.
| Code | Info |
|---|---|
| unknownerror | Unknown error: This usually means something crazy like a rare race condition occurred. If you get this error, retry your request until it succeeds or returns a more informative error message |
| unknownerror | Unknown error: "errorcode" |
| unknownerror-nocode | Unknown error |
| unsupportednamespace | Pages in the Special namespace can't be edited |
| protectednamespace-interface | You're not allowed to edit interface messages |
| protectednamespace | You're not allowed to edit pages in the "namespace" namespace |
| customcssjsprotected | You're not allowed to edit custom CSS and JavaScript pages |
| cascadeprotected | The page you're trying to edit is protected because it's included in a cascade-protected page |
| protectedpage | The "right" right is required to edit this page |
| permissiondenied | Permission denied |
| confirmemail | You must confirm your e-mail address before you can edit |
| blocked | You have been blocked from editing |
| autoblocked | Your IP address has been blocked automatically, because it was used by a blocked user |
| ratelimited | You've exceeded your rate limit. Please wait some time and try again |
| readonly | The wiki is currently in read-only mode |
| badtoken | Invalid token (did you remember to urlencode it?) |
| missingtitle | The page you requested doesn't exist |
| mustbeposted | Type of your HTTP request message must be POST |
| hookaborted | The modification you tried to make was aborted by an extension hook |
| nosuchpageid | There is no page with ID id |
| nosuchrevid | There is no revision with ID id |
| nosuchrcid | There is no change with rcid "id" |
| nosuchuser | The user you specified doesn't exist |
| invalidtitle | Bad title "title" |
| invaliduser | Invalid username "username" |
| assertbotfailed | "assert=bot" has been used, but logged in user is not a bot |
| assertuserfailed | "assert=user" has been used, but user is not logged in |
| readapidenied | You need read permission to use this module |
| noapiwrite | Editing of this wiki through the API is disabled. Make sure the $wgEnableWriteAPI=true; statement is included in the wiki's LocalSettings.php file |
