Handling errors in Angular with retry operator

Sometimes HTTP requests fail due to temporary issues such as intermittent network connections or server problems. To deal with these issues effectively, you can use the RxJs retry operator within an Angular interceptor. In this article, we'll explore how to use this operator in an interceptor to improve error handling in your Angular applications.

Explanation:

The RxJS retry operator can be used within an Angular interceptor to automatically retry HTTP requests in case of an error. This is particularly useful for handling situations where requests may temporarily fail due to network issues, server congestion, or other transient issues.

Create the interceptor

To implement this in Angular, you'll first need to create a custom interceptor. Here's an example of how to do this:

ng g interceptor retry-interceptor

import { RetryConfig, retry } from "rxjs";
import { HttpHandlerFn, HttpRequest } from "@angular/common/http";

export const retryInterceptor = (config: RetryConfig) =>
    (req: HttpRequest<unknown>, next: HttpHandlerFn) =>
        next(req).pipe(retry(config));

In the above example, the retry(config) operator will retry the HTTP request the number of times you have configured if an error occurs. If the request still fails after the number of times you have configured, the error is passed, but you can configure a catchError operator to handle it.

Add interceptor to the providers of our application

export const appConfig: ApplicationConfig = {
  providers: [
    provideHttpClient(withInterceptors([retryInterceptor({ count: 1 })]))
  ]
};

Conclusion

The RxJS retry operator is a valuable tool when used in an Angular interceptor to automatically handle failed HTTP requests. This increases the reliability of your applications by making them more resilient to temporary network or server issues. By implementing this approach, you can build more robust Angular applications that provide a more robust user experience.