MessagePort: messageerror event

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since March 2023.

Note: This feature is available in Web Workers.

The messageerror event is fired on a MessagePort object when it receives a message that can't be deserialized.

This event is not cancellable and does not bubble.

Syntax

Use the event name in methods like addEventListener(), or set an event handler property.

js
addEventListener("messageerror", (event) => { })

onmessageerror = (event) => { }

Event type

A MessageEvent. Inherits from Event.

Event MessageEvent

Event properties

This interface also inherits properties from its parent, Event.

MessageEvent.data Read only

The data sent by the message emitter.

MessageEvent.origin Read only

A string representing the origin of the message emitter.

MessageEvent.lastEventId Read only

A string representing a unique ID for the event.

MessageEvent.source Read only

A MessageEventSource (which can be a WindowProxy, MessagePort, or ServiceWorker object) representing the message emitter.

MessageEvent.ports Read only

An array containing all MessagePort objects sent with the message, in order.

Examples

Attempting to share memory

A common cause of messageerror events is attempting to send a SharedArrayBuffer object, or a buffer view backed by one, across agent clusters. For example, a window is not in the same agent cluster as a shared worker it created, so suppose the page runs the following code:

js
const worker = new SharedWorker("worker.js");
worker.port.start();
worker.port.addEventListener("message", (event) => {
  worker.port.postMessage(new SharedArrayBuffer(1024));
});

And worker.js contains the following code:

js
self.addEventListener("connect", (event) => {
  console.log("Hello");
  const port = event.ports[0];
  port.start();
  port.postMessage("Port connected");
  port.addEventListener("messageerror", (event) => {
    console.log("Message error");
  });
});

Then the shared worker will receive a messageerror event when it tries to deserialize the message sent from the window.

Note: You can use browser devtools to debug your SharedWorker, by entering a URL in your browser address bar to access the devtools workers inspector; for example, in Chrome, the URL chrome://inspect/#workers, and in Firefox, the URL about:debugging#workers.

Specifications

Specification
HTML
# event-messageerror
HTML
# handler-messageport-onmessageerror

Browser compatibility

desktop mobile server
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
Bun
Deno
Node.js
messageerror event
Chrome – Full support
Chrome 60 (Release date: 2017-07-25)
footnote Full support
Edge – Full support
Edge 18 (Release date: 2018-10-02)
footnote Full support
Firefox – Full support
Firefox 57 (Release date: 2017-11-14)
footnote Full support
Opera – Full support
Opera 47 (Release date: 2017-08-09)
footnote Full support
Safari – Full support
Safari 16.4 (Release date: 2023-03-27)
footnote Full support
Chrome Android – Full support
Chrome Android 60 (Release date: 2017-08-01)
footnote Full support
Firefox for Android – Full support
Firefox for Android 57 (Release date: 2017-11-28)
footnote Full support
Opera Android – Full support
Opera Android 47 (Release date: 2018-07-23)
footnote Full support
Safari on iOS – Full support
Safari on iOS 16.4 (Release date: 2023-03-27)
footnote Full support
Samsung Internet – Full support
Samsung Internet 8 (Release date: 2018-07-18)
footnote Full support
WebView Android – Full support
WebView Android 60 (Release date: 2017-08-01)
footnote Full support
WebView on iOS – Full support
WebView on iOS 16.4 (Release date: 2023-03-27)
footnote Full support
Bun – Full support
Bun 1 (Release date: 2023-09-08)
footnote Full support
Deno – Full support
Deno 1.12 (Release date: 2021-07-13)
footnote Full support
Node.js – Partial support
Node.js 12.19 – 12.19 (Release date: 2020-10-06)
footnote Removed in 13 and later
footnote Partial support
footnote Supports the event, but only via Node EventEmitter.
Node.js – Partial support
Node.js 14.5 – 14.6 (Release date: 2020-06-30)
footnote Partial support
footnote Supports the event, but only via Node EventEmitter.
Node.js – Full support
Node.js 14.7 (Release date: 2020-07-29)
footnote Full support

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support
Partial support
Partial support
Has more compatibility info.

See also