Custom Error Handling with Rails 4.0

Question

I'm building a Ruby on Rails api using Ruby 2.0 and Rails 4.0. My app is almost solely a JSON API, so if an error occurs (500, 404), I want to capture that error and return a nicely formatted JSON error message.

I've tried this and also:

rescue_from ActionController::RoutingError, :with => :error_render_method

def error_render_method
  puts "HANDLING ERROR"
  render :json => { :errors => "Method not found." }, :status => :not_found
  true
end

In my ApplicationController.

Neither of these do the trick (the exceptions are not captured at all). My Googling shows that this changed a lot between 3.1, 3.2, and I can't find any good documentation on how to do this in Rails 4.0.

Anybody know?

Edit Here's the stack trace when I go to a 404 page:

Started GET "/testing" for 127.0.0.1 at 2013-08-21 09:50:42 -0400

ActionController::RoutingError (No route matches [GET] "/testing"):
actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/debug_exceptions.rb:21:in `call'
actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/show_exceptions.rb:30:in `call'
railties (4.0.0) lib/rails/rack/logger.rb:38:in `call_app'
railties (4.0.0) lib/rails/rack/logger.rb:21:in `block in call'
activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/tagged_logging.rb:67:in `block in tagged'
activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/tagged_logging.rb:25:in `tagged'
activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/tagged_logging.rb:67:in `tagged'
railties (4.0.0) lib/rails/rack/logger.rb:21:in `call'
actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/request_id.rb:21:in `call'
rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/methodoverride.rb:21:in `call'
rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/runtime.rb:17:in `call'
activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/cache/strategy/local_cache.rb:83:in `call'
rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/lock.rb:17:in `call'
actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/static.rb:64:in `call'
railties (4.0.0) lib/rails/engine.rb:511:in `call'
railties (4.0.0) lib/rails/application.rb:97:in `call'
rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/lock.rb:17:in `call'
rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/content_length.rb:14:in `call'
rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/handler/webrick.rb:60:in `service'
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/webrick/httpserver.rb:138:in `service'
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/webrick/httpserver.rb:94:in `run'
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/webrick/server.rb:295:in `block in start_thread'


Rendered /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/actionpack-4.0.0/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/templates/rescues/_trace.erb (1.0ms)
Rendered /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/actionpack-4.0.0/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/templates/routes/_route.html.erb (2.9ms)
Rendered /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/actionpack-4.0.0/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/templates/routes/_route.html.erb (0.9ms)
Rendered /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/actionpack-4.0.0/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/templates/routes/_table.html.erb (1.1ms)
Rendered /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/actionpack-4.0.0/lib/action_dispatch/middleware/templates/rescues/routing_error.erb within rescues/layout (38.3ms)

I don't think I want it to ever get this far, something should catch it and return the appropriate json error response.

Answer 1

The request isn't even hitting your app.

You need to define a catchall route so Rails will send the request to your app rather than display an error (in development) or render the public/404.html page (in production)

Modify your routes.rb file to include the following

match "*path", to: "errors#catch_404", via: :all

And in your controller

class ErrorsController < ApplicationController

  def catch_404
    raise ActionController::RoutingError.new(params[:path])
  end
end

And your rescue_from should catch the error then.