API Error Codes

Below you can find the complete list of errors that are returned by the API together with the description, API code, and corresponding HTTP status of each error.

Name	HTTP Status Code	HTTP Status	Stream Code	Description
Input Error	400	Bad Request	4	When wrong data/parameter is sent to the API
Duplicate Username Error	400	Bad Request	6	When a duplicate username is sent while enforce_unique_usernames is enabled
Message Too Long Error	400	Bad Request	20	Message is too long
Event Not Supported Error	400	Bad Request	18	Event is not supported
Channel Feature Not Supported Error	400	Bad Request	19	The feature is currently disabled on the dashboard (i.e. Reactions & Replies)
Multiple Nesting Level Error	400	Bad Request	21	Multiple Levels Reply is not supported - the API only supports 1 level deep reply threads
Custom Command Endpoint Call Error	400	Bad Request	45	Custom Command handler returned an error
Custom Command Endpoint Missing Error	400	Bad Request	44	App config does not have custom_action_handler_url
Authentication Error	401	Unauthorised	5	Unauthenticated, problem with authentication
Authentication Token Expired	401	Unauthorised	40	Unauthenticated, token expired
Authentication Token Before Issued At	401	Unauthorised	42	Unauthenticated, token date incorrect
Authentication Token Not Valid Yet	401	Unauthorised	41	Unauthenticated, token not valid yet
Authentication Token Signature Invalid	401	Unauthorised	43	Unauthenticated, token signature invalid
Access Key Error	401	Unauthorised	2	Access Key invalid
Not Allowed Error	403	Forbidden	17	Unauthorised / forbidden to make request
App Suspended Error	403	Forbidden	99	App suspended
Cooldown Error	403	Forbidden	60	User tried to post a message during the cooldown period
Does Not Exist Error	404	Not Found	16	Resource not found
Request Timeout Error	408	Request Timeout	23	Request timed out
Payload Too Big Error	413	Request Entity Too Large	22	Payload too big
Rate Limit Error	429	Too Many Requests	9	Too many requests in a certain time frame
Maximum Header Size Exceeded Error	431	Request Header Fields Too Large	24	Request headers are too large
Internal System Error	500	Internal Server Error	-1	Triggered when something goes wrong in our system
No Access to Channels	403	Unauthorised	70	No access to requested channels
Message Moderation Failed	400	Bad Request	73	Message did not pass moderation

Common Errors Explained

This section explains how to solve common API errors.

The full error you receive is “GetOrCreateChannel failed with error: “either data.created_by or data.created_by_id must be provided when using server side auth.” with error code 4. This error is only triggered when using server side authentication.

You can encounter this error when calling channel.watch(), channel.create() or channel.query(). All three methods call get or create a channel. There are two possible causes for this error:

1. You are trying to watch a channel that hasn’t been created

You are expecting that the channel is already created. For instance if you have the following code:

const serverClient = new StreamChat("key", "secret");
const channel = serverClient.channel("messaging", 123);
channel.watch();

The above code works well if the channel with cid messaging:123 already exists. If it doesn’t exist yet it will throw the above error. So you can get this error when calling channel.watch if another part of your code failed to create the channel.

2. You want to create a channel but forgot the created_by_id param

If you’re actually intending to create a channel in this part of your code you need to specify the user as follows:

const serverClient = new StreamChat("key", "secret");
// create the channel and set created_by to user id 4645
const channel = serverClient.channel("messaging", "123", {
  created_by_id: "4645",
});
channel.create();

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