> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://elixor.js.org/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://elixor.js.org/error-handling/getting-error-details.md).

# Getting error details

Detecting that an error occurred is one thing. Interpreting that error and composing a user-friendly response is a bit more involved.

Two types of errors can occur. The server backend might reject the request, returning an HTTP response with a status code such as 404 or 500. These are error *responses*.

Or something could go wrong on the client-side such as a network error that prevents the request from completing successfully or an exception thrown in an RxJS operator. These errors produce JavaScript `ErrorEvent` objects.

The `Elixor` captures both kinds of errors in its `HttpErrorResponse` and you can inspect that response to figure out what really happened.

Error inspection, interpretation, and resolution are something you want to do in the *service*, not in the *component*.

You might first devise an error handler like this one:

{% code title="Config.service.ts" %}

```typescript
private handleError(error: HttpErrorResponse) {
  if (error.error instanceof ErrorEvent) {
    // A client-side or network error occurred. Handle it accordingly.
    console.error('An error occurred:', error.error.message);
  } else {
    // The backend returned an unsuccessful response code.
    // The response body may contain clues as to what went wrong,
    console.error(
      `Backend returned code ${error.status}, ` +
      `body was: ${error.error}`);
  }
  // return an observable with a user-facing error message
  return throwError(
    'Something bad happened; please try again later.');
};


```

{% endcode %}

Notice that this handler returns an RxJS `ErrorObservable` with a user-friendly error message. Consumers of the service expect service methods to return an `Observable` of some kind, even a "bad" one.

Now you take the `Observables` returned by the `Elixor` methods and *pipe them through* to the error handler.<br>

{% code title="Config.service.ts" %}

```typescript
getConfig() {
  return elixor.get<Config>(this.configUrl)
    .pipe(
      catchError(this.handleError)
    );
}

```

{% endcode %}