responseType: stream, does not return response data for 4xx-5xx errors

[unerh]

Summary

The following server response (which is returned by postman)
Status: 4xx-5xx

{
  status: 500,
  message: 'Call your admin'
}

Is not present in the catch, when called with:

axios('URL', {
    responseType: 'stream',
    headers: {
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    },
})
.then(response => {
  response.data.pipe('Destination Stream');
})
.catch(error => console.log(error.response));

I only get back the status code, and not the response data (as printed above) back. I'm aware that for responseType: 'stream' the error.response.data is meant to be the actual stream. But I can't find the response message anywhere else in the error.response structure.

Doesn't axios return this back when it errors for streams?

Context

• axios version: v0.18.0
• Environment: node v8.6.0

[unerh]

As this is a stream, the exact error message can be deciphered from the stream buffer if really needed. We no longer need to return this error so I'm closing this issue.

But as an enhancement it might be good to extract error response message out of the buffer into the main error.response object.

[bam-tbf]

I would recommend handing these types of errors automatically. Otherwise the standard error handling functionality of Axios does not work as expected.

For those looking for a quick example of a solution in the meantime you can do something like:

try {
  const response = await axios({ method: 'GET', url, responseType: 'stream' })
} catch (err) {
    let streamString = ''
    err.response.data.setEncoding('utf8')
    err.response.data
      .on('data', (utf8Chunk) => { streamString += utf8Chunk })
      .on('end', () => {
        d.error(streamString, 'Stream error')
      })
  }