What are Web Errors? Types of Web Errors
Web errors, also known as HTTP status codes are the messages that the server sends to the browser to inform about the status of a requested web page or resource. These status codes are the part of HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) standard and serve to communicate whether a web request was successful or encountered with any issue.
Whenever you are accessing any website or web page, your browser communicates with the web server and both client side and server sides use these codes to understand and handle the request appropriately. Sometimes when you visit any web page, you got an HTTP error message, it’s a message from the web server that shows something went wrong. It could be an error from a client side or server side which occurs.
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Each type of error has an HTTP error code dedicated to the request. For example, if you try to access a non-existing page on any website, you will get a 404 error.
Here are some common web errors and their meanings are as follows,
404 Not Found:
The 404 Not Found error is one of the most common and familiar web errors all users can get on the internet. It occurs when the requested web page or resource cannot be found on the server. It’s one of the most well-known web errors and typically appears when a URL is mistyped or a page has been removed. Improper typed URL, broken links leading to 404 pages. This error also appears when users are trying to access removed pages or temporarily unavailable pages on the website.
403 Forbidden:
The 403 Forbidden error occurs when the server understood the request but refuses to authorize it. Whenever you encounter with a 403 error, it means that you don’t have permission to access the requested resource. If a user is trying to access a forbidden directory or a web page on a website then the user will get the 403 error. The error shows the website does not permit a user to browse the website’s file directory structure of a specific page. This often occurs when a web page or directory is protected and requires authentication.
500 Internal Server Error:
The 500 Internal Server Error occurs when the server encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request. This is a generic server error message, indicating that something went wrong on the server’s side while processing the request. It occurs when the web server is overloaded and the server faced a situation where it sends 500 server error. This is one of the most common web error messages a user will experience. It’s a catch-all error for various server-related issues.
502 Bad Gateway:
The 502 Bad Gateway error is occurring when service temporarily overloaded. This error typically indicates that a server acting as a gateway or proxy received an invalid response from an upstream server. This error occurs while attempting to fulfill the request from web server, the server acted as a gateway and received an invalid response from an inbound server. It’s often seen when there are problems with server-to-server communication. This web error resolves when the website traffic decreases itself and sometimes also caused by if there will be a server related issued with cloud hosting provider.
503 Service Unavailable:
The 503 Server Unavailable error occurs when the server is not ready to handle the request. When a server is temporarily unable to handle the request, it responds with a 503 error. This error occurs during the server maintenance, server overload during maintenance or when a server is overwhelmed with too many requests.
401 Unauthorized:
The 401 Unauthorized error occurs when the request lacks valid authentication credentials for the resource. This error occurs when access to a resource requires authentication, and the user has not provided valid credentials and failed the authentication process. It is one of the most common error appears for login pages on a website.
400 Bad Request:
A 400 Bad Request error indicates that the server cannot understand the request due to invalid syntax or missing information in the request. This error occurs when can’t process the request due to something perceived to be a client error. In this error, the data sent by the browser does not conform to the rules of HTTP protocol.
301 Moved Permanently:
The 301 Moved Permanently error occurs for permanent redirecting, meaning that links or records returning this response should be updated. This is a redirection status code. It tells the browser that the requested resource has been permanently moved to a new URL. The browser should automatically follow the new URL.
304 Not Modified:
The 304 Not Modified error indicates that the requested resource from the web server has not been modified since the last time it was loaded, and there’s no need to transfer it again. When a server receives a request for a resource, it can respond with a 304 status code if the resource has not been modified since the last request. This allows browsers to use cached versions of the resource.
The following table shows the list of HTTP web errors status codes are as follows,
| 400 | Bad Request |
| 401 | Unauthorized |
| 402 | Payment Required |
| 403 | Forbidden |
| 404 | Not Found |
| 405 | Method Not Allowed |
| 406 | Not Acceptable |
| 407 | Proxy Authentication Required |
| 408 | Request Timeout |
| 409 | Conflict |
| 410 | Gone |
| 411 | Length Required |
| 412 | Precondition Failed |
| 413 | Payload Too Large |
| 414 | URI Too Long |
| 415 | Unsupported Media Type 416: Range Not Satisfiable |
| 417 | Expectation Failed |
| 418 | I’m a teapot |
| 421 | Misdirected Request |
| 422 | Unprocessable Entity 423: Locked |
| 424 | Failed Dependency |
| 425 | Too Early |
| 426 | Upgrade Required |
| 428 | Precondition Required 429: Too Many Requests |
| 431 | Request Header Fields Too Large 451: Unavailable For Legal Reasons |
| 500 | Internal Server Error |
| 501 | Not Implemented |
| 502 | Bad Gateway |
| 503 | Service Unavailable 504: Gateway Timeout |
| 505 | HTTP Version Not Supported |
| 506 | Variant Also Negotiates 507: Insufficient Storage |
| 508 | Loop Detected |
| 510 | Not Extended511 Network Authentication Required |
These web errors are essential for troubleshooting and diagnosing the web related issues. And also used to manage the requests from server side and client side. They provide information about what went wrong during a web request and guide developers and users in understanding and resolving the problems.
