Spanner error codes and error handling

This page describes Spanner error codes and recommended actions to handle these errors. Google APIs, including Spanner, use the canonical error codes defined by google.rpc.Code.

When a Spanner request is successful, the API returns an HTTP 200 OK status code along with the requested data in the body of the response.

When a request fails, the Spanner API returns an HTTP 4xx or 5xx status code that generically identifies the failure as well as a response that provides more specific information about the error(s) that caused the failure.

The response object contains a single field error whose value contains the following elements:

Element	Description
code	An HTTP status code that generically identifies the request failure.
message	Specific information about the request failure.
status	The canonical error code (google.rpc.Code) for Google APIs. Codes that may be returned by the Spanner API are listed in Error Codes.

If a request made with a content type of application/x-protobuf results in an error, it will return a serialized google.rpc.Status message as the payload.

Note: The text provided in the message might change at any time so applications shouldn't depend on the actual text.

Error codes

The recommended way to classify errors is to inspect the value of the canonical error code (google.rpc.Code). In JSON errors, this code appears in the status field. In application/x-protobuf errors, it's in the code field.

Error code	Description	Recommended action
ABORTED	The operation was aborted, typically due to concurrency issue such as a sequencer check failure or transaction abort. Indicates that the request conflicted with another request.	For a non-transactional commit: Retry the request or structure your entities to reduce contention. For requests that are part of a transactional commit: Retry the entire transaction or structure your entities to reduce contention.
ALREADY_EXISTS	The entity that a client attempted to create already exists (for example, inserting a row with an existing primary key).	Don't retry without fixing the problem.
CANCELLED	The operation was cancelled, typically by the caller.	Retry the operation.
DEADLINE_EXCEEDED	The deadline expired before the operation could complete.	Investigate if the deadline is sufficient. Use a deadline corresponding to the actual time in which a response is useful. Note that for operations that change the state of the system, an error might be returned even if the operation has completed successfully. For tips, see Troubleshoot deadline exceeded errors.
FAILED_PRECONDITION	The operation was rejected because a precondition for the request was not met. The message field in the error response provides information about the precondition that failed. For example, reading or querying from a timestamp that has exceeded the maximum timestamp staleness.	Don't retry without fixing the problem.
INTERNAL	The server returned an error. Some invariants expected by the underlying system have been broken.	Don't retry unless you understand the specific circumstance and cause of the error.
INVALID_ARGUMENT	The client specified an invalid value. The message field in the error response provides information as to which value was invalid.	Don't retry without fixing the problem.
NOT_FOUND	Indicates that some requested entity, such as updating an entity or querying a table or column, doesn't exist.	Don't retry without fixing the problem.
OUT_OF_RANGE	The operation was attempted past the valid range.	Don't retry without fixing the problem.
PERMISSION_DENIED	The user was not authorized to make the request.	Don't retry without fixing the problem.
RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED	Some resource has been exhausted. Perhaps the project exceeded its quota or the entire file system is out of space.	Verify that you did not exceed your Spanner or project quota. If you exceeded a quota, don't retry without fixing the problem. Otherwise, retry with exponential backoff.
UNAUTHENTICATED	The request doesn't have valid authentication credentials for the operation.	Don't retry without fixing the problem.
UNAVAILABLE	The server is unavailable.	Retry using exponential backoff. Note that it is not always safe to retry non-idempotent operations.
UNIMPLEMENTED	The operation is not implemented or is not supported/enabled in this service.	Don't retry without fixing the problem.
UNKNOWN	Server returned an unknown error. Errors raised by APIs that don't return enough error information may be converted to this error.	Check that your request is safe. Then, retry with exponential backoff.