SOAP Fault Element

The Fault element of SOAP is used to retain error and status information of SOAP messages.

SOAP Fault Element

Optional SOAP Fault elements are used to indicate error messages.

If a Fault element is provided, it must be a child element of the Body element. In a SOAP message, the Fault element can only appear once.

The Fault element of SOAP has the following child elements:

Child Elements Description
<faultcode> Code for identifying the fault
<faultstring> Readable description of the fault for humans
<faultactor> Information about who caused the fault
<detail> Persistent application-specific error information related to the Body element

SOAP Fault Code

The faultcode value defined below must be used in the faultcode element to describe the error:

Error Description
VersionMismatch An invalid namespace was found in the SOAP Envelope element
MustUnderstand A direct child element of the Header element (with the mustUnderstand attribute set to "1") cannot be understood.
Client The message was incorrectly constructed or contained incorrect information.
Server There is a problem with the server, so it cannot proceed.