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GH-3884: Clarify exception handling behavior for Error vs RuntimeExce… #3886

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merged 4 commits into from
May 7, 2025
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GH-3884: Clarify exception handling behavior for Error vs RuntimeExce… #3886

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GH-3884: Clarify exception handling behavior for Error vs RuntimeExce…
sobychacko May 6, 2025
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PR review
sobychacko May 6, 2025
b36f81e
PR review
sobychacko May 7, 2025
9f65a34
Fix typo in the doc
artembilan May 7, 2025
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8 changes: 8 additions & 0 deletions ...ka-docs/src/main/antora/modules/ROOT/pages/kafka/annotation-error-handling.adoc
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Expand Up @@ -242,6 +242,14 @@ public DefaultErrorHandler errorHandler(ConsumerRecordRecoverer recoverer) {
}
----

[IMPORTANT]
The `DefaultErrorHandler` only processes exceptions that inherit from `RuntimeException`.
Exceptions inheriting from `Error` bypass the error handler entirely, causing the consumer to terminate immediately, close the Kafka connection, and skip all retry/recovery mechanisms.
This critical distinction means applications may report healthy status despite having terminated consumers that no longer process messages.
Always ensure that exceptions thrown in message processing code explicitly extend from `RuntimeException` rather than `Error` to allow proper error handling.
In other words, if the application throws an exception, ensure that it is extended from `RuntimeException` and not inadvertently inherited from `Error`.
Standard errors like `OutOfMemoryError`, `IllegalAccessError`, and other errors beyond the control of the application are still treated as `Error``s and not retried.

The error handler can be configured with one or more `RetryListener`+++s+++, receiving notifications of retry and recovery progress.
Starting with version 2.8.10, methods for batch listeners were added.

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