HTTP 506 — Variant Also Negotiates

Transparent content negotiation for the request results in a circular reference

When to use it

Use status 506 when this is the correct HTTP response semantic: Transparent content negotiation for the request results in a circular reference

Request and response example

GET /service HTTP/1.1
Host: api.example.com

HTTP/1.1 506 Variant Also Negotiates
Content-Type: application/json

{"error":"Service failed to process the request"}

Related status codes

500, 501, 502, 503

References

MDN · RFC 9110