508 Loop Detected

The HTTP 508 Loop Detected server error response status code indicates that the entire operation failed because it encountered an infinite loop while processing a request with Depth: infinity.

The status may be given in the context of the Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning ({{Glossary("WebDAV")}}). It was introduced as a fallback for cases where WebDAV clients do not support {{HTTPStatus("208", "208 Already Reported")}} responses (when requests do not explicitly include a DAV header).

Status

508 Loop Detected

Examples

Infinite loop in WebDAV search

PROPFIND /Coll/ HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Depth: infinity
Content-Type: application/xml; charset="utf-8"
Content-Length: 125

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<D:propfind xmlns:D="DAV:">
  <D:prop> <D:displayname/> </D:prop>
</D:propfind>

HTTP/1.1 508 Loop Detected
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Server: Microsoft-IIS/8.0
Date: Wed, 15 May 2013 02:38:57 GMT
Content-Length: 72

{
  "Message": "Please check the resources for cyclic references and try again."
}

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

See also

• HTTP response status codes
• {{HTTPStatus("208", "208 Already Reported")}}