Redirect on errors

[max-degterev]

Hi, not sure if it's a bug or me not using the library properly.

I have this quick demo: https://runkit.com/suprmax/5fc78c9c251bb3001a7d3555

const needle = require('needle');

const url = 'http://www.mein-contipark.de';
let calls = 0;

needle.head(url, { follow_max: 2 }, (...args) => {
  calls += 1;
  console.log(`Call #${calls}`, args);
});

When follow_max prop is set first request fails and also redirects. There is no way that I can see to detect that redirect occured. Then second request succeeds but in my application I already assume request failed. Is there a way to detect these error-y redirects?

[cristiklein]

I notice the same behaviour with needle 3.3.1 and https://imy.se. The website is buggy, as it responds to HEAD with a 302 and a body, which is against the HTTP spec. The code above generates the output below. As you can see, needle calls the callback twice, which is surprising.

It breaks at least one project depending on needle.

Call #1 [
  Error: Parse Error: Data after `Connection: close`
      at TLSSocket.socketOnData (node:_http_client:614:22)
      at TLSSocket.emit (node:events:519:28)
      at addChunk (node:internal/streams/readable:561:12)
      at readableAddChunkPushByteMode (node:internal/streams/readable:512:3)
      at Readable.push (node:internal/streams/readable:392:5)
      at TLSWrap.onStreamRead (node:internal/stream_base_commons:189:23) {
    bytesParsed: 215,
    code: 'HPE_CLOSED_CONNECTION',
    reason: 'Data after `Connection: close`',
    rawPacket: <Buffer 48 54 54 50 2f 31 2e 31 20 33 30 32 20 46 6f 75 6e 64 20 0d 0a 43 6f 6e 6e 65 63 74 69 6f 6e 3a 20 63 6c 6f 73 65 0d 0a 43 6f 6e 74 65 6e 74 2d 54 79 ... 333 more bytes>
  },
  undefined,
  undefined
]
Call #2 [
  null,
  <ref *1> IncomingMessage {
    _events: {
      close: [Array],
      error: [Array],
      data: undefined,
      end: [Array],
      readable: undefined,
      finish: [Array]
    },
    _readableState: ReadableState {
      highWaterMark: 65536,
      buffer: [],
      bufferIndex: 0,
      length: 0,
      pipes: [],
      awaitDrainWriters: SafeSet(0) {},
      [Symbol(kState)]: 110757692
    },
    _maxListeners: undefined,
    socket: null,
    httpVersionMajor: 1,
    httpVersionMinor: 1,
    httpVersion: '1.1',
    complete: true,
    rawHeaders: [
      'Transfer-Encoding',
      'chunked',
      'Content-Type',
      'text/html; charset=utf-8',
      'X-XSS-Protection',
      '1; mode=block',
      'Content-Security-Policy',
      "base-uri 'none';form-action 'self' *.readspeaker.com;frame-ancestors 'self'",
      'X-Content-Type-Options',
      'nosniff',
      'X-Frame-Options',
      'SameOrigin',
      'Referrer-Policy',
      'no-referrer-when-downgrade',
      'Date',
      'Tue, 18 Nov 2025 12:07:13 GMT'
    ],
    rawTrailers: [],
    joinDuplicateHeaders: undefined,
    aborted: false,
    upgrade: false,
    url: '',
    method: null,
    statusCode: 200,
    statusMessage: 'OK',
    client: TLSSocket {
      _tlsOptions: [Object],
      _secureEstablished: true,
      _securePending: false,
      _newSessionPending: false,
      _controlReleased: true,
      secureConnecting: false,
      _SNICallback: null,
      servername: 'www.imy.se',
      alpnProtocol: false,
      authorized: true,
      authorizationError: null,
      encrypted: true,
      _events: [Object: null prototype],
      _eventsCount: 9,
      connecting: false,
      _hadError: false,
      _parent: null,
      _host: 'www.imy.se',
      _closeAfterHandlingError: false,
      _readableState: [ReadableState],
      _writableState: [WritableState],
      allowHalfOpen: false,
      _maxListeners: undefined,
      _sockname: null,
      _pendingData: null,
      _pendingEncoding: '',
      server: undefined,
      _server: null,
      ssl: [TLSWrap],
      _requestCert: true,
      _rejectUnauthorized: true,
      timeout: 5000,
      parser: null,
      _httpMessage: null,
      [Symbol(alpncallback)]: null,
      [Symbol(res)]: [TLSWrap],
      [Symbol(verified)]: true,
      [Symbol(pendingSession)]: null,
      [Symbol(async_id_symbol)]: -1,
      [Symbol(kHandle)]: [TLSWrap],
      [Symbol(lastWriteQueueSize)]: 0,
      [Symbol(timeout)]: Timeout {
        _idleTimeout: 5000,
        _idlePrev: [TimersList],
        _idleNext: [TimersList],
        _idleStart: 809,
        _onTimeout: [Function: bound ],
        _timerArgs: undefined,
        _repeat: null,
        _destroyed: false,
        [Symbol(refed)]: false,
        [Symbol(kHasPrimitive)]: false,
        [Symbol(asyncId)]: 383,
        [Symbol(triggerId)]: 377,
        [Symbol(kAsyncContextFrame)]: undefined
      },
      [Symbol(kBuffer)]: null,
      [Symbol(kBufferCb)]: null,
      [Symbol(kBufferGen)]: null,
      [Symbol(shapeMode)]: true,
      [Symbol(kCapture)]: false,
      [Symbol(kSetNoDelay)]: false,
      [Symbol(kSetKeepAlive)]: true,
      [Symbol(kSetKeepAliveInitialDelay)]: 1,
      [Symbol(kBytesRead)]: 0,
      [Symbol(kBytesWritten)]: 0,
      [Symbol(connect-options)]: [Object]
    },
    _consuming: true,
    _dumped: false,
    req: ClientRequest {
      _events: [Object: null prototype],
      _eventsCount: 3,
      _maxListeners: undefined,
      outputData: [],
      outputSize: 0,
      writable: true,
      destroyed: true,
      _last: true,
      chunkedEncoding: false,
      shouldKeepAlive: true,
      maxRequestsOnConnectionReached: false,
      _defaultKeepAlive: true,
      useChunkedEncodingByDefault: false,
      sendDate: false,
      _removedConnection: false,
      _removedContLen: false,
      _removedTE: false,
      strictContentLength: false,
      _contentLength: 0,
      _hasBody: true,
      _trailer: '',
      finished: true,
      _headerSent: true,
      _closed: true,
      _header: 'GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n' +
        'accept: */*\r\n' +
        'user-agent: Needle/3.3.1 (Node.js v22.21.0; linux x64)\r\n' +
        'host: www.imy.se\r\n' +
        'Connection: keep-alive\r\n' +
        '\r\n',
      _keepAliveTimeout: 0,
      _onPendingData: [Function: nop],
      agent: [Agent],
      socketPath: undefined,
      method: 'GET',
      maxHeaderSize: undefined,
      insecureHTTPParser: undefined,
      joinDuplicateHeaders: undefined,
      path: '/',
      _ended: true,
      res: [Circular *1],
      aborted: false,
      timeoutCb: null,
      upgradeOrConnect: false,
      parser: null,
      maxHeadersCount: null,
      reusedSocket: false,
      host: 'www.imy.se',
      protocol: 'https:',
      [Symbol(shapeMode)]: false,
      [Symbol(kCapture)]: false,
      [Symbol(kBytesWritten)]: 0,
      [Symbol(kNeedDrain)]: false,
      [Symbol(corked)]: 0,
      [Symbol(kChunkedBuffer)]: [],
      [Symbol(kChunkedLength)]: 0,
      [Symbol(kSocket)]: [TLSSocket],
      [Symbol(kOutHeaders)]: [Object: null prototype],
      [Symbol(errored)]: null,
      [Symbol(kHighWaterMark)]: 65536,
      [Symbol(kRejectNonStandardBodyWrites)]: false,
      [Symbol(kUniqueHeaders)]: null
    },
    _eventsCount: 4,
  [...]
]

[tomas]

Interesting. Would you submit a PR to handle this issue?