Common Error Messages & How to Handle Them

Overview

Error messages - with their oversized, confusing numbers and unfailingly poor timing - are the thorns and thistles of the fallen world of software. They can pop up anywhere, so there’s a good chance you’ll come across them from time to time while navigating CarePortal. But, they don’t need to stop you from serving kids and families in your community - the CarePortal Support and Development teams are dedicated to tearing out these digital thorns at their roots.

Some error messages are even pointing at issues you can resolve on your own without intervention from the CarePortal Team. This article is meant to help you make sense of the most common error messages you’ll encounter, enabling you to distinguish between the errors you can deal with yourself and the errors that require a little elbow grease from the CarePortal team.

Intended Audience

Network Leaders, Agencies, Churches, Community Champions, End Users

Included in This Article

• 500 Errors
• 400 Errors

500 Errors

Error codes that begin with a ‘5’ all refer to server-related issues. Any time you are attempting to access a CarePortal web page, your browser needs to make a connection to CarePortal’s servers so that it can display the data stored there. There are a number of issues that can interfere with this connection, some more serious than others.

For our purposes, we can divide 500 errors into two categories: specific and generic 500 errors.

Specific 500 Errors

By ‘specific’, we mean errors to which the server assigns a code more specific than 500. This includes any 500 error code that isn’t just a 500. Such as a 502, 503, 522, etc.

These errors specify various ways that the connection between your browser and our server might be breaking down, from a ‘bad gateway’ to a standard connection timeout. They identify what has happened, but not why it happened. There are a number of potential causes for these server connection issues, both on your end and ours. As a rule, it’s best to first make sure your internet connection / firewall isn’t at fault; if it’s not, then it might be something on our end slowing the servers down. These service interruptions are typically brief, so give it an hour or two - if you’re still having issues connecting to the server after that, let us know!

Generic 500 Error

If the server can’t identify a more specific 500 error to explain the issue, it’ll return a generic 500 error. If you see this error, it’s important that you notify CarePortal Support as soon as possible. These errors most often appear when the page you’re attempting to load relies on data that is broken or missing - consequently, the page will likely remain inaccessible until our developers address the root issue generating the error. In that case, the sooner we’re aware of the issue, the better!

400 Errors

Unlike 500 errors, which result from a failed connection between your browser and our server in the course of fulfilling a valid page request, 400 errors are generated when your page request is construed as invalid and intentionally rejected by the server. In other words, you’re attempting to access a page, and a connection to our server is successfully established, but the server rejects your request. Most often, this happens because you do not have authorization or permission to view the page you’re attempting to access (403 & 401 errors), or because the page you’re attempting to access does not exist (404 error).

Authorization Errors (401 & 403 Errors)

Certain pages are only visible to users with the proper roles / permissions. If you attempt to access a page that you don’t have permission to access based on the account you’re currently logged in as, you’ll see one of these two errors.

If you have more than one account, there’s a good chance you’ve seen one of these errors before. Let’s say you have two accounts - one with your Regional Manager role and another with your church roles. You want to respond to a request on behalf of your church, so you switch to your account with the church roles. Later, you’re notified that a new church has enrolled in your Region. You attempt to follow the link in the notification email to go to the new church’s ‘Church Edit’ page, but you’re still logged into your account with the church roles. Consequently, you don’t have access to view the new church’s information, and the number 403 pops up on your screen. In order to access the new church’s information, you’ll need to log out of the account with the church roles and log back into your Regional Manager account.

So, if you ever see one of these two errors, and you think you should have access to the page that you’re being denied access to, double check the account you’re logged in as. Is it the account that should have access to this page? To be safe, it’s always good to logout and log back in to the account that you know has access, then try to access the page again.

Page Not Found (404)

This error occurs when the page you’re attempting to access (as defined by the URL) does not exist in our server.

The first step is to check your URL - does it look correct? Did you directly modify the URL in order to access the page you’re attempting to access, or did you receive the URL from someone else? If so, it’s possible that there is an error in the URL causing it to misidentify the address of the page you’re looking for. In that case, try to access the page normally through the path laid out in the CarePortal UI (if possible), or reach out to Support if you’re not sure how to get to where you need to go.

If you’re encountering a 404 error when clicking a link directly embedded anywhere throughout the CarePortal website, then let Support know as soon as possible - most likely, the link is broken and needs to be fixed by our developers.

Conclusion

This is far from an exhaustive list of all the possible errors you might encounter while using CarePortal, but our hope is that this article has equipped you with a better understanding of what these errors mean and, more importantly, how best to respond when you see them. 

Remember - the CarePortal Support Team is always an email away. If you're confused about any of this information, or if you find yourself being poked by an error that isn't represented here, don't hesitate to reach out! You can learn more about how to submit a ticket here.