DataTables warning: table id=ProductList - 5

OzPenguin

I have checked the error messages listed at https://datatables.net/manual/tech-notes/ and none of these seem to match. They all have an error description listed after the - and all I am seeing is a 5.

Code has been very stable for months, but this morning, I started getting the message
DataTables warning: table id=ProductList - 5
It only appears for some data being populated, so I know it is data related, but the JSON being returned appears to be well formed.

Version being used:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="https://cdn.datatables.net/1.10.13/css/jquery.dataTables.min.css"
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://cdn.datatables.net/1.10.13/js/jquery.dataTables.min.js"></script>

Can anyone help with what the 5 means ?

OzPenguin

Now I am not so sure that it is a data problem.

I have narrowed it down, so that search criteria that returns just two rows, which can reproduce this error.

But if I then restrict the search to either one of these products, then I don't get the error.

So it appears to be something about the combination of these two rows in the same result set that is cause of the problem for me.

I really need to get a better understanding of what the 5 means.

allan

Weird. DataTables should always give an error code and then a description. I'm not sure what would cause just 5 to appear.

Can you link to a page showing the issue?

Thanks,
Allan

OzPenguin

I could give a private link, but the site is live production data.

Otherwise need to try and reproduce the problem on the test site with fake data. I don't think this is likely as I can't work out what is causing the scenario (catch 22)

allan

You can send me a link privately by clicking my name above and then the Send message button.

Allan

OzPenguin

My humble apologies for wasting the time of all those people who took the time to read this.

I just realised that my debugging page was not showing quite the same products by and once I addressed that issue (to get the same search criteria) then I saw that there really is malformed JSON.

The data request experienced an error:
JSON Error 5 - Malformed UTF-8 characters, possibly incorrectly encoded
and then returned:

{
    "result": "error",
    "data": [],
    "error": 5,
    "errormessage": "Malformed UTF-8 characters, possibly incorrectly encoded"
}

This must be where the 5 was coming from in the error message

I presume that I am not returning the error in the ideal way, comments on how I should do this are most welcome.

allan

DataTables will show whatever is in the error parameter, which explains why it is just showing 5 in this case!

Allan

OzPenguin

Thanks Allan

I will change the error response to:

{
    "result": "error",
    "data": [],
    "errorid": 5,
    "error": "Malformed UTF-8 characters, possibly incorrectly encoded"
}