Error handling

Error handling is a crucial aspect of building reliable data integration pipelines in SnapLogic. It allows you to manage and process errors that may occur during pipeline execution. It is designed to ensure that your data integration pipelines can continue processing even when errors occur.

Error handling mechanism

The SnapLogic Platform follows a specific error-handling precedence. Understanding this prevents unexpected pipeline behavior:

Snap-level settings: The When errors occur setting determines how to handle errors.
Error Pipeline (global handler): If a Snap is configured to Route to Error Pipeline, the data is passed to a central error-handling pipeline.
Default platform behavior: If no specific setting is configured, the pipeline stops on encountering the error and fails.

You can configure your pipelines to handle errors using the following methods:

Set the Error View in the Snap Settings dialog.
Create an Error Pipeline.

Error view

You can configure the error view in the Snaps within your pipeline to handle errors by selecting an option from the When errors occur dropdown in the Views tab of the Snap settings.

Snap Settings for error handling options


When errors occur	Description
Discard Error Data and Continue	This option discards the record with errors, if any, and continues with the Snap execution. You might encounter partial or no data processing if you select this option.
Route Error Data to Error View	Routes the error data to an error view without stopping the Snap execution. If you manage errors in this manner within the pipeline, the overall status of the pipeline will still show as completed. You can route errors to the error view and decide how to manage them in the pipeline: store them in a file, log them, or take specific actions based on the type of error. However, this approach is not recommended for handling errors throughout an entire project. This method is not scalable as pipelines evolve. Instead, consider alternative strategies for managing errors at scale.
Stop Pipeline Execution	This option stops the current pipeline execution when an error occurs. When you hover on the failed Snap, you can view the error message, the reason for the error, and its resolution. Click the Stats icon to view the detailed error message.

Error pipeline

An error pipeline is a pipeline that you can create specifically for handling errors—it processes error documents produced by other pipelines in your environment. When an error is encountered during pipeline execution, the error handling mechanism routes the error documents to an error pipeline. The main pipeline continues processing valid documents without being interrupted by errors. The error pipeline runs even if errors are not encountered in the Snaps from the main pipeline.

After the error pipeline is configured, the Route to Error Pipeline option is displayed in the Views tab of the main pipeline:

Select this option to route the errors to an error pipeline. Learn more about Working with Error Pipelines.

Error pipeline considerations

You can invoke the error pipeline from any given pipeline from the same dialog (similar to the way that child pipelines are invoked).
Add output to an error pipeline: If you need to customize an error document before sending it to the error pipeline, you can change the Snap to Route Error Data to Error View and then add any Snaps needed for customization.
After you add the Snaps, you can then connect their unlinked output views to the error pipeline by selecting Route to Error Pipeline from the Views tab of Snap settings.
When viewing a main pipeline with an error pipeline, you can view the errors by clicking the Stats icon in the Designer toolbar. It displays the number of documents that pass through the output and the number of documents failed with errors.

Error pipeline runtime characteristics

The duration of an error pipeline time is not tracked alongside the root pipeline, the way it is for children pipelines. In Monitor, the error pipeline might precede the root parent pipeline in the Pipeline Executions page. Likwise, in Open Telemetry Observability tools, the error pipeline runtime might precede the root pipeline runtime.

You can filter for Error Pipeline execution information by searching for invocation type. You can also use the Runtime Public API to get details about a specific pipeline runtime and its errors.