Why do I get an Unhandled Promise Rejection with await Promise.all

Question

This is the general structure of my code:

(async () => {
  try {
    const asyncActions = []

    for (let i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
      await new Promise((resolve, reject) => setTimeout(resolve, 1000))

      for (let j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
        asyncActions.push(new Promise((resolve, reject) => setTimeout(reject, 1000)))
      }
    }

    await Promise.all(asyncActions)
    console.log('all resolved')
  }
  catch (e) {
    console.log('caught error', e)
  }
})()

I expect this to catch any rejections happening in asyncActions because they should be handled by Promise.all(), but somehow they are unhandled? The console shows the following:

(node:9460) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: undefined
(Use `node --trace-warnings ...` to show where the warning was created)
(node:9460) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block, or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). To terminate the node process on unhandled promise rejection, use the CLI flag `--unhandled-rejections=strict` (see https://nodejs.org/api/cli.html#cli_unhandled_rejections_mode). (rejection id: 1)
(node:9460) [DEP0018] DeprecationWarning: Unhandled promise rejections are deprecated. In the future, promise rejections that are not handled will terminate the Node.js process with a non-zero exit code.
(node:9460) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: undefined
(node:9460) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block, or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). To terminate the node process on unhandled promise rejection, use the CLI flag `--unhandled-rejections=strict` (see https://nodejs.org/api/cli.html#cli_unhandled_rejections_mode). (rejection id: 2)
...

(node:9460) PromiseRejectionHandledWarning: Promise rejection was handled asynchronously (rejection id: 1)
(node:9460) PromiseRejectionHandledWarning: Promise rejection was handled asynchronously (rejection id: 2)
...

Why are they not handled by Promise.all() and then caught in the catch block?

I also noticed that when I replace both the new Promise(...) with just Promise.resolve() and Promise.reject() respectively it catches the errors. Why is that? Aren't both variants asynchronous and thus should work the same way?

Answer 1

The way we detect non-handling of promise rejections in Node.js is using a heuristic.

When a promise is rejected we give the user a chance to still attach a listener (synchronously) - if they don't we assume it's not handled and cause an unhandledRejection. This is because:

• It's impossible (as in the halting problem) to know if a user will ever attach such a handler in the future.
• In the vast majority of cases it's sufficient, since it's best-practice to always immediately attach listeners.

So - you need to always add the catch listeners synchronously in order to avoid the unhandled rejections.

You can also (in your non-contrived case) just opt out by adding an empty catch listener in a fork:

(async () => {
  try {
    const asyncActions = []

    for (let i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
      await new Promise((resolve, reject) => setTimeout(resolve, 1000))

      for (let j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
        const p = new Promise((resolve, reject) => setTimeout(reject, 1000));
        p.catch(() => {}); // suppress unhandled rejection
        asyncActions.push(p)
      }
    }

    await Promise.all(asyncActions)
    console.log('all fulfilled')
  }
  catch (e) {
    console.log('caught error', e)
  }
})()

---

• Fun historical tidbit #1: we considered using GC to detect unhandledRejections - people found it more confusing.
• Fun historical tidbit #2: Chrome does the same thing but actually removes the messages retrospectively if you add a listener.
• Fun historical tidbit #3: This heuristic originated in bluebird in 2013. I talk about it here.

Answer 2

where it goes wrong

This is happening because at least one promise is rejected before getting to Promise.all If you adjust the timeout of the rejected promises to 5000, you will see the catch block act as intended -

(async () => {
  console.log("please wait...")
  try {
    const asyncActions = []

    for (let i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
      await new Promise((resolve, reject) => setTimeout(resolve, 1000))

      for (let j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
        asyncActions.push(new Promise((resolve, reject) => setTimeout(reject, 5000, "FOO")))
      }
    }

    await Promise.all(asyncActions)
    console.log('all resolved')
  }
  catch (e) {
    console.log('caught error', e)
  }
})()

please wait...
error caught FOO

capturing the error

Above, this works because all asyncActions are still pending by the time they get to Promise.all. However this is fragile as we cannot guarantee this would be the case. Benjamin's proposed answer is to swallow the error, but I think we could improve by bubbling the error up -

const sleep = ms =>
  new Promise((resolve, _) => setTimeout(resolve, ms))

const myTask = x =>
  sleep(30).then(_ => Promise.reject(x))


;(async () => {
  console.log("please wait...")
  try {
    // outer promise
    await new Promise(async (resolve, reject) => {
      const actions = []

      for (let i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
        await sleep(1000)
        for (let j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
          // reject outer promise if this task fails
          actions(myTask(j).catch(reject))
        }
      }

      const result = await Promise.all(actions)
      console.log('all done')
      resolve(result) // <- resolve outer
    })
  }
  catch (e) {
    console.log('caught error', e)
  }
})()

separate effects

Above, adding an outer promise works, but await new Promise(...) is a bit of an anti-pattern. By moving the effect (console.log) and the error handler outside of your task, your code cleans up considerably -

const sleep = ms =>
  new Promise((resolve, _) => setTimeout(resolve, ms))

async function myTask(i, j) {
  await sleep(300)
  if (Math.random() > .95)
    throw [i, j]
  return i + j
}

function queuedTasks() {
  return new Promise(async (resolve, reject) => {
    const actions = []
    for (let i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
      await sleep(1000)
      for (let j = 0; j < 3; j++)
        actions.push(myTask(i,j).catch(reject))
    }
    Promise.all(actions).then(resolve)
  })
}

console.log("please wait...")
queuedTasks()
  .then(results => console.log("all done", results)) // <- receives result
  .catch(console.error) // <- handles error

Above, this example has a 5% reject chance for myTask. Run it several times to see both a resolved and a rejected result -

// resolved
all done [0,1,2,1,2,3,2,3,4]

// rejected
Error: [1,2]

Pool

You could stop there but I think there's still room for improvement here. By reading the code, I can see the intention is to batch the promises three (3) at a time, waiting one (1) second in between each batch -

  // ...
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    // ...
    for (let i = 0; i < 3; i++) {  // three batches
      await sleep(1000)            // wait one second
      for (let j = 0; j < 3; j++)  // then run batch
        actions.push(myTask(...))  // add each task
    }
    // ...
    Promise.all(actions).then(resolve)
  })

This design will start three tasks every second, regardless of whether the running tasks are finished. It is a primitive level of control at best and at worst it's a lot of boilerplate to copy every time you want to do queued/throttled tasks.

One solution is to design a data structure that can do these things for you in a reusable way. Let's take a look at Pool -

// create pool with 3 "threads"
const pool = new Pool(3)

async function queuedTask(i, j) {
  const close = await pool.open()     // wait for pool thread to open
  return throttle(myTask(i, j), 1000) // throttle task by one second minimum
    .finally(close)                   // close thread upon completion
}

// ...

Now you can write a simple loop, this time using queuedTask -

// ...
const actions = []
for (let i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
  for (let j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
    actions.push(queuedTask(i,j))
  }
}

console.log("please wait...")
Promise.all(actions)
  .then(JSON.stringify)
  .then(console.log, console.error)

In the table below, we can see how Pool(3) will carry out the tasks -

task	(i,j)	thread 1	thread 2	thread 3
queueing	(0,0)	⌛	⌛	⌛
running	(0,0)	open	⌛	⌛
queueing	(0,1)	↓	⌛	⌛
running	(0,1)	↓	open	⌛
queueing	(0,2)	↓	↓	⌛
running	(0,2)	↓	↓	open
queueing	(1,0)	↓	↓	↓
queueing	(1,1)	↓	↓	↓
queueing	(1,2)	↓	↓	↓
queueing	(2,0)	↓	↓	↓
queueing	(2,1)	↓	↓	↓
queueing	(2,2)	↓	↓	↓
finished	(0,0)	closed	↓	↓
running	(2,2)	open	↓	↓
finished	(0,2)	↓	↓	closed
running	(2,1)	↓	↓	open
finished	(0,1)	↓	closed	↓
running	(2,0)	↓	open	↓
finished	(2,1)	↓	↓	closed
running	(1,2)	↓	↓	open
finished	(2,0)	↓	closed	↓
running	(1,1))	↓	open	↓
finished	(2,2)	closed	↓	↓
running	(1,0)	open	↓	↓
finished	(1,2)	↓	↓	closed
finished	(1,0)	closed	↓	⌛
finished	(1,1)	⌛	closed	⌛

To learn more about this approach, see Pool implemented in this Q&A. Expand the snippet below and run it several times to see both resolved and rejected outputs -

class Pool {
  constructor (size = 4) { Object.assign(this, { pool: new Set, stack: [], size }) }
  open () { return this.pool.size < this.size ? this.deferNow() : this.deferStacked() }
  deferNow () { const [t, close] = thread(); const p = t.then(_ => this.pool.delete(p)).then(_ => this.stack.length && this.stack.pop().close()); this.pool.add(p); return close }
  deferStacked () { const [t, close] = thread(); this.stack.push({ close }); return t.then(_ => this.deferNow()) }
}
const rand = x => Math.random() * x
const effect = f => x => (f(x), x)
const thread = close => [new Promise(r => { close = effect(r) }), close]
const sleep = ms => new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, ms))
const throttle = (p, ms) => Promise.all([ p, sleep(ms) ]).then(([ value, _ ]) => value)

async function myTask(i, j) {
  await sleep(rand(2000))
  if (Math.random() > .95)
    throw Error([i, j])
  return i + j
}

async function queuedTask(i, j) {
  const close = await pool.open()
  return throttle(myTask(i, j), 1000).finally(close)
}

const pool = new Pool(3)
const actions = []
for (let i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
  for (let j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
    actions.push(queuedTask(i,j))
  }
}

console.log("please wait...")
Promise.all(actions)
  .then(console.log, console.error)

// resolved
[0,1,2,1,2,3,2,3,4]

// rejected
Error: [1,2]