Return JSON on error when header {"Accept":"application/octet-stream"} in request

Question

I´m having some issues when returning some errors from a rest WebService.

Making a request with the header {"Accept":"application/octet-stream"} (the service returns a document ResponseEntity<InputStreamResource> if all the process goes well).

When all the process goes well the document is downloaded fine, but when an error is occurred and the code jumps to the @ControllerAdvice and tries to return a JSON error. Here comes the problem, when trying to return the JSON springs crashes:

org.springframework.web.HttpMediaTypeNotAcceptableException: Could not find acceptable representation 

Here is a example of some code:

Controller

@RequestMapping(value = "/test", method = RequestMethod.GET, produces = {MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE, MediaType.APPLICATION_OCTET_STREAM_VALUE })
    public ResponseEntity<CustomError> test() throws Exception {
        throw new Exception();
    }

ControllerAdvice

@ControllerAdvice
public class ExceptionHandlerAdvice {
    private static final Logger logger = LogManager.getLogger(ExceptionHandlerAdvice.class);

    @ExceptionHandler({Exception.class,Throwable.class})
    @ResponseBody
    public ResponseEntity<CustomError> handleUnhandledException(Exception exception) {
        CustomError error = new CustomError(exception.getMessage());
        return new ResponseEntity<CustomError>(error, HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR);
    }

}

CustomError:

public class CustomError {

    private String errorDescription;

    public CustomError(String errorDescription) {
        super();
        this.errorDescription = errorDescription;
    }

    public String getErrorDescription() {
        return errorDescription;
    }

    public void setErrorDescription(String errorDescription) {
        this.errorDescription = errorDescription;
    }

}

I´ve also tried returning new headers on @controllerAdvice

@ExceptionHandler({Exception.class,Throwable.class})
  @ResponseBody
  public ResponseEntity<CustomError> handleUnhandledException(Exception exception) {
    HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
    headers.setAccept(Collections.singletonList(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON));
    CustomError error = new CustomError(exception.getMessage());
    return new ResponseEntity<CustomError>(error,headers, HttpStatus.INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR);
  }

Any idea how can I make this work or ignore Accept header on response? It´s possible?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

This exception means your response type not match with your request header. If you are expecting JSON/Stream to be returned, your request header should be {"Accept":"application/octet-stream,application/json"}.