Files
spring-boot-demo/problem-details/docs/07-silent-500s.md
T
asmhatreandClaude Opus 5 926250e1a9 Add problem-details: global exception handling with RFC 9457
Companion code for "Global Exception Handling with ProblemDetail (RFC 9457)
in Spring Boot 4". Thirteen failures under five handling setups (Boot
defaults, the Boot flag, a ResponseEntityExceptionHandler advice, advice
plus an ErrorController, a catch-all ordered first), validation errors,
i18n, content negotiation, Security's 401/403, silent 500s and decoding
on the client. 16 tests pin the behaviour.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01C3TETMrqVUWeFkNtz3Jbo3
2026-09-11 17:12:22 +00:00

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1.5 KiB
Markdown

# 7. Silent 500s: the catch-all that makes errors invisible
[← 6. Outside Spring MVC](06-outside-mvc.md) · [Index](../README.md) · Next: [8. Clients →](08-clients.md)
When an exception reaches the container, Tomcat logs it with its stack trace. When an
`@ExceptionHandler` handles it, **nothing logs it unless that handler does** - handling an
exception means it is no longer an error as far as the framework is concerned.
[`silent-500.txt`](output/silent-500.txt), one request to `/orders/boom` per setup:
```
defaults (Boot /error) ERROR lines: 1 stack frames: 87
boot-flag ERROR lines: 1 stack frames: 87
advice, catch-all logs with errorId ERROR lines: 1 stack frames: 87
advice, catch-all WITHOUT the log line ERROR lines: 0 stack frames: 0
catchall-first (returns 500, never logs) ERROR lines: 0 stack frames: 0
```
The last two return a tidy `500` problem and leave no trace anywhere. Adding problem details to an
API that used to log its failures can remove the only record of them.
[`GlobalExceptionHandler.unexpected`](../src/main/java/com/ankurm/problems/advice/GlobalExceptionHandler.java)
logs at ERROR with a generated `errorId`, puts the same id in the response, and keeps
`ex.getMessage()` out of it - the message in this project contains a JDBC URL and a database user,
which is exactly what RFC 9457's security considerations warn against exposing.