Error Codes

The following list of errors describes many of the common errors that you may receive when interacting with the IRB Exchange. Many of these errors occur because of invalid input into the system, and thus can be corrected by changing the client code that is accessing the IRB Exchange.

Error 1

500 Internal Server Error

The server was unable to complete your request.

The system will respond with this error when the source of the issue is unknown.

Resolution

This type of error is unexpected and will require additional investigation.

Error 1001

400 Bad Request

The certificate file was not specified.

This will occur when an attempt is made to update an organization certificate, but no certificate is provided within the request.

Resolution

Attach a certificate and retry the request.

Error 1003

409 Conflict

The organization already exists.

This error occurs when an attempt is made to register an organization that has already been registered.

Resolution

Each organization that is registered on the IRB Exchange must have a unique name. The system ignores casing, thus Huron University is equivalent to huron university and will cause this error to occur.

Error 1004

400 Bad Request

The media type is not supported.

This error occurs when attempting to update an organization certificate, and the media type specified for a certificate is not supported. The system supports the following media types: application/x-pem-file, application/x-x509-ca-cert, and application/pkix-cert.

Resolution

Encode the certificate using one of the supported formats, and set the appropriate media type within the Content-Disposition header.

Error 1006

400 Bad Request

A required field is missing.

This error occurs when a required value in a request body is missing. The missing property should be listed within the error details.

Resolution

Add the missing property value and resend the request.

Error 1007

400 Bad Request

Expected the value to be base-64 encoded.

This error occurs when the value of a property in a request body is expected to be base-64 encoded but has an incorrect encoding. The error details should contain the name of the field which is incorrectly encoded.

Resolution

Base-64 encode the specified value and retry the request.

Error 1008

400 Bad Request

Expected the value to be base-16 encoded.

This error occurs when the value of a property in the request body is expected to be base-16 encoded (hexidecimal) but has an incorrect encoding. The error details should contain the name of the field which is incorrectly encoded.

Resolution

Base-16 encode the specified value and retry the request.

Error 1009

400 Bad Request

The hash algorithm is not supported.

This error can occur when adding or updating an item, if the hash algorithm specified in the request for the content, header, or key is not supported by the system.

Resolution

Update the request to use one of the specified hash algorithms in the list of supported hash algorithms.

Error 1010

400 Bad Request

The hash is invalid for the specified hash algorithm.

This error can occur when adding or updating an item, and the hash value specified does not conform to the specified hash algorithm. For example, all SHA-256 hash values should be 64 characters in length. Specifying a hash value that is shorter or longer would result in this error response.

Resolution

Modify the request to use a correct hash value and resend the request.

Error 1012

400 Bad Request

The symmetric-key algorithm is not supported.

This error can occur when adding or updating an item, if the symmetric key algorithm specified in the request for the item header, or item content is not supported by the system.

Resolution

Update the request to use one of the specified symmetric-key algorithms in the list of supported symmetric-key algorithms

Error 1013

400 Bad Request

The initialization vector is invalid for the specified symmetric-key algorithm.

This error can occur when adding or updating an item, if the initialization vector specified in the request is invalid for the specified symmetric-key algorithm. For example, AES has a fixed block size of 128 bits, and the IV is equal to the block size. Thus the IV must be 128 bits or 16 bytes (32 hex characters).

Error 1014

403 Forbidden

Only the item owner may grant or revoke access.

This error can occur if an organization attempts to grant access or revoke access from an item which they do not own.
Resolution

The request cannot be modified to make this successful. This operation is not allowed, and should not be retried.

Error 1015

409 Conflict

Unable to grant access to an item because the specified organization does not have access to the container.

This error occurs if an organization attempts to grant access to an organization that does not have access to the item's container. This prevents an organization from granting read access to another organization which is not collaborating on a multi-site study.

Resolution

This type of error should not be retried, it will continue to fail for the same reason. If the specified organization needs access to the item, the acting sIRB organization should invite the organization as a collaborator on the study.

Error 1016

409 Conflict

The owner's access cannot be revoked.

This error occurs if the owner of an item attempts to remove their own access to an item. This is not allowed.

Resolution

The request cannot be modified to make this successful. This type of operation is not allowed, and should not be retried.

Error 1017

403 Forbidden

Only the owner may modify the item.

This error occurs if an organization with read access to an item attempts to overwrite the item on the IRB Exchange. The system will only allow the owning organization to modify an item. If the organization attempting this request needs to make a modification to an item, they should create a new item with the modifications.

Resolution

This request cannot be modified to make this successful. This type of operation is not allowed, and should not be retried.

Error 1018

403 Forbidden

You do not have access to the item.

This error occurs if you make a request for an item and you have not been granted access by the item's owner.

Resolution

Contact the owning organization and have them grant you access.

Error 1019

400 Bad Request

Unable to parse the certificate.

This error occurs when updating an organization's certificate and the certificate file cannot be parsed. This will occur if the certificate file is corrupt, or the file sent as the certificate is not a certificate file.

Resolution

Modify the request by attaching a file that is an actual certificate.

Error 1020

400 Bad Request

The certificate format is not supported.

This error occurs when an update to an organization's certificate is not is encoded in one of the supported file formats.

Resolution

Modify the request by attaching a certificate that is in the list of supported public key certificate file formats.

Error 1021

403 Forbidden

The request is missing the User-Agent header.

All requests made to the IRB Exchange system are required to include the User-Agent header. This informs the IRB Exchange system of the software agent being used to communicate with the IRB Exchange. More information can be found about the User-Agent header on the Mozilla Developer Network.

Resolution

Add a User-Agent header and then retry the request.

Error 1022

403 Fobidden

The request was sent using an insecure protocol.

This error occurs if a request is made to the IRB Exchange using HTTP. The IRB Exchange requires that all requests are made using HTTPS.

Resolution

Modify the request scheme from HTTP to HTTPS and retry the request.

Error 1023

409 Conflict

The organization does not exist.

This error can occur when granting access to a container if the specified organization does not exist within the IRB Exchange system.

Resolution

Modify the organization identifier and retry the request.

Error 2004

403 Forbidden

Only the owner of the container may grant to other organizations.

This error occurs if an organization which is not the owner of the container attempts to grant access to another organization. For example, this will occur if an organization acting as a pSite invites another organization to collaborate on a multi-site study.

Resolution

This type of operation is not allowed, and should not be retried. If the specified organization needs access, please contact the owning organization (sIRB) and have them grant access.

Error 2005

400 Bad Request

Request data is malformed or missing.

This error may occur for requests that contain a request body, and the body is not specified, or the body contains invalid JSON.

Resolution

Add a request body, or fix the improperly formatted data within the request body, then retry the request.

Error 2008

403 Forbidden

Only the owner of the container may revoke access from other organizations.

This error occurs if an organization which is not the owner of the container attempts to revoke access from another ogrnaization. For example, this will occur if an organization acting as a pSite attempts to remove another organization from collaborating on a multi-site study.

Resolution

This type of operation is not allowed, and should not be retried. If the specified organization should not have access to the container, please contact the owning organization (sIRB) and have them revoke access from the organization.