Handle elmah.io downtime

Like every other SaaS product out there, we cannot promise you 100% uptime on elmah.io. We understand, that your logging data is extremely important for your business and we do everything in our power to secure that elmah.io is running smoothly. To monitor our APIs and websites, check out status.elmah.io.

It is our general recommendation to implement code that listens for communication errors with the elmah.io API and log errors elsewhere. How you do this depends on which elmah.io NuGet package you have installed. The documentation for each package will show how to subscribe to errors. For Elmah.Io.Client it would look similar to this:

var elmahIo = ElmahioAPI.Create("API_KEY");
elmahIo.Messages.OnMessageFail += (sender, args) =>
{
    var message = args.Message;
    var exception = args.Error;

    // TODO: log it
};

For a logging framework like Serilog, it would look similar to this:

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .WriteTo.ElmahIo(new ElmahIoSinkOptions("API_KEY", new Guid("LOG_ID"))
    {
        OnError = (msg, ex) =>
        {
            // TODO: log it
        }
    })
    .CreateLogger();

It is important not to log errors in OnMessageFail and OnError callbacks to elmah.io, since that could cause an infinite loop. Check out the documentation for the package you are using for additional details.

Response explanation

Here's an overview of the types of errors you can experience from the API:

Response	Meaning
Timeout	Something is very wrong with our API or Azure. You can be sure that we are working 24/7 to fix it.
500	The API is reachable, but we have a problem communicating with Azure Service bus. Azure has great uptime and all of our resources are dedicated and replicated. Still, we experience short periods of downtime from time to time.
429	We allow a maximum (per API key) of 500 requests per minute and 3600 per hour. 429 means that you have crossed that line. This status code doesn't indicate that the API is down.
4xx	Something is wrong with the request. Check out the API documentation for details. This status code doesn't indicate that the API is down.

This article was brought to you by the elmah.io team. elmah.io is the best error management system for .NET web applications. We monitor your website, alert you when errors start happening, and help you fix errors fast.

See how we can help you monitor your website for crashes Monitor your website