EC
506
HTTPSERVER_ERRORCritical5xx Server ErrorHIGH confidence

Variant Also Negotiates

Production Risk

High. This is a fundamental server misconfiguration that will likely cause a specific resource to be unavailable to all users.

What this means

Indicates that the server has an internal configuration error: the chosen variant resource is configured to engage in transparent content negotiation itself, and is therefore not a proper endpoint in the negotiation process.

Why it happens
  1. 1A server is misconfigured where a resource that should be a final representation is instead pointing to another negotiation process.
  2. 2This creates a circular reference in the content negotiation logic.
  3. 3This is a server-side configuration error.
How to reproduce

A request for /resource triggers a negotiation that selects /resource/en as the best variant, but the server is misconfigured so that /resource/en also tries to start content negotiation.

trigger — this will error
trigger — this will error
GET /resource HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Accept-Language: en

expected output

HTTP/1.1 506 Variant Also Negotiates

Fix

Correct Server Configuration

WHEN This error occurs.

Correct Server Configuration
Review the server's content negotiation rules and ensure that variant resources are actual endpoints, not further negotiation entry points.

Why this works

Server Administration

Content generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy. Found an error? hello@errcodes.dev

← All HTTP errors