Handling Diameter Errors

Errors with the Diameter protocol fall into two categories: protocol errors and application errors.

Protocol errors result from problems that occur with the underlying protocol that carries Diameter messages. For example, a protocol error might occur when the routing information is incorrect or there is a network failure. Applications errors result from the failure of the Diameter protocol itself. For example, when a mandatory AVP is missing in a particular Diameter command, a DIAMETER_MISSING_AVP result code is returned.

Every response message in Diameter carries a Result-Code AVP, which is mapped to the ResultDetail MDC field. The receiver of a response message can examine this AVP to see if the previous message was successfully processed. In addition, the message sender can also check the Error-Message AVP for additional information for error handling. This AVP carries human readable error messages and can be used to determine the actual cause. The Failed-AVP field, if present, may provide more information about an unsuccessful result.

If a Diameter message arrives in the Traffic Routing Agent without routing AVPs specified, the Traffic Routing Agent will attempt to route the message to an active engine. If it does not find an active engine, routing fails and a No routing AVPs in PDU messages is included in the log message.