A 422 Error is an HTTP error code that defines that the server is unable to process your request. Specifically, a 422 error represents “Unprocessable Entity”.
This is not a common error code like 404 or 500 etc. It usually occurs when the server understands the request you are making to it but cannot process it because of a semantic error. It often occurs when the submitted data is in an incorrect format, contains invalid fields, or fails validation rules. That’s why it usually triggers more commonly in API development. For example, if you are trying to create a user with an email id that already exists, then the server will return a 422 Unprocessable Entity.
Let’s talk about what are the reasons for the occurrence of the error and how you can fix it.
Causes of 422 Error
Here are some common causes of “422 Unprocessable Entity” error that includes:
- There may be a validation failures when the submitted data fails to meet the format or validation rules defined by the server.
- The request contains incomplete data.
- The server cannot fulfill the request due to a violation of specific business rules or constraints in the process.
- Maybe the user is not authorized to perform the requested action.
- Inconsistencies between server data and existing data.
How to fix 422?
The most common cause of 422 error is that the request contains some invalid data. To fix the error, you need to go through the following steps to identify what causes the issue.
- Check and validate the input data that is sent to the server and ensure that it is in the correct format or not.
- Ensure that all required fields are filled out if you are submitting the data.
- Make sure to provide clear and informative error messages so that the client can identify and resolve the issue.
- Check the whole code and perform testing to catch the error issues.
Note that there can be many possible reason causing the error 422. If you are a developer and encountering this error while working on a web application, firstly examine the error message returned in the response. It will help you by providing the information of what causes the 422 error. After that resolve it by handling validation and adjustments to the data being sent in your code.
400 vs 422 Status Codes
The HTTP error codes 400 and 422 are both related to client errors, but they serve different purposes. 400 Bad Request code generally refers to issues with the request structure or syntax and it does not specify the exact nature of the problem, whereas 422 error code specifically highlights problems with the content or semantics of the request payload.