Websocket onerror - how to read error description?

Question

I've been developing browser-based multi player game for a while now and I've been testing different ports accessibility in various environment (client's office, public wifi etc.). All is going quite well, except one thing: I can't figure out is how to read error no. or description when onerror event is received.

Client websocket is done in javascript.

For example:

// Init of websocket
websocket = new WebSocket(wsUri);
websocket.onerror = OnSocketError;
...etc...

// Handler for onerror:
function OnSocketError(ev)
{
    output("Socket error: " + ev.data);
}

'output' is just some utility function that writes into a div.

What I am getting is 'undefined' for ev.data. Always. And I've been googling around but it seems there's no specs on what params this event has and how to properly read it.

Any help is appreciated!

Answer 1

The error Event the onerror handler receives is a simple event not containing such information:

If the user agent was required to fail the WebSocket connection or the WebSocket connection is closed with prejudice, fire a simple event named error at the WebSocket object.

You may have better luck listening for the close event, which is a CloseEvent and indeed has a CloseEvent.code property containing a numerical code according to RFC 6455 11.7 and a CloseEvent.reason string property.

Please note however, that CloseEvent.code (and CloseEvent.reason) are limited in such a way that network probing and other security issues are avoided.

Answer 2

Alongside nmaier's answer, as he said you'll always receive code 1006. However, if you were to somehow theoretically receive other codes, here is code to display the results (via RFC6455).

you will almost never get these codes in practice so this code is pretty much pointless

var websocket;
if ("WebSocket" in window)
{
    websocket = new WebSocket("ws://yourDomainNameHere.org/");

    websocket.onopen = function (event) {
        $("#thingsThatHappened").html($("#thingsThatHappened").html() + "<br />" + "The connection was opened");
    };
    websocket.onclose = function (event) {
        var reason;
        alert(event.code);
        // See http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6455#section-7.4.1
        if (event.code == 1000)
            reason = "Normal closure, meaning that the purpose for which the connection was established has been fulfilled.";
        else if(event.code == 1001)
            reason = "An endpoint is \"going away\", such as a server going down or a browser having navigated away from a page.";
        else if(event.code == 1002)
            reason = "An endpoint is terminating the connection due to a protocol error";
        else if(event.code == 1003)
            reason = "An endpoint is terminating the connection because it has received a type of data it cannot accept (e.g., an endpoint that understands only text data MAY send this if it receives a binary message).";
        else if(event.code == 1004)
            reason = "Reserved. The specific meaning might be defined in the future.";
        else if(event.code == 1005)
            reason = "No status code was actually present.";
        else if(event.code == 1006)
           reason = "The connection was closed abnormally, e.g., without sending or receiving a Close control frame";
        else if(event.code == 1007)
            reason = "An endpoint is terminating the connection because it has received data within a message that was not consistent with the type of the message (e.g., non-UTF-8 [http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3629] data within a text message).";
        else if(event.code == 1008)
            reason = "An endpoint is terminating the connection because it has received a message that \"violates its policy\". This reason is given either if there is no other sutible reason, or if there is a need to hide specific details about the policy.";
        else if(event.code == 1009)
           reason = "An endpoint is terminating the connection because it has received a message that is too big for it to process.";
        else if(event.code == 1010) // Note that this status code is not used by the server, because it can fail the WebSocket handshake instead.
            reason = "An endpoint (client) is terminating the connection because it has expected the server to negotiate one or more extension, but the server didn't return them in the response message of the WebSocket handshake. <br /> Specifically, the extensions that are needed are: " + event.reason;
        else if(event.code == 1011)
            reason = "A server is terminating the connection because it encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request.";
        else if(event.code == 1015)
            reason = "The connection was closed due to a failure to perform a TLS handshake (e.g., the server certificate can't be verified).";
        else
            reason = "Unknown reason";

        $("#thingsThatHappened").html($("#thingsThatHappened").html() + "<br />" + "The connection was closed for reason: " + reason);
    };
    websocket.onmessage = function (event) {
        $("#thingsThatHappened").html($("#thingsThatHappened").html() + "<br />" + "New message arrived: " + event.data);
    };
    websocket.onerror = function (event) {
        $("#thingsThatHappened").html($("#thingsThatHappened").html() + "<br />" + "There was an error with your websocket.");
    };
}
else
{
    alert("Websocket is not supported by your browser");
    return;
}

websocket.send("Yo wazzup");

websocket.close();

See http://jsfiddle.net/gr0bhrqr/