TypeError: Cannot set property message of which has only a getter

[mmayors]

Checkboxes for prior research

• I've gone through Developer Guide and API reference
• I've checked AWS Forums and StackOverflow.
• I've searched for previous similar issues and didn't find any solution.

Describe the bug

After migrating our v2 SDK clients to v3, we're seeing this specific error sporadically but frequently when sending a command:

Cannot set property message of  which has only a getter
 
TypeError: Cannot set property message of  which has only a getter
    at message (webpack://.../node_modules/@smithy/middleware-serde/dist-es/deserializerMiddleware.js:16:18)
    at output (webpack://.../node_modules/@smithy/core/dist-es/middleware-http-signing/httpSigningMiddleware.js:18:10)
    at null (webpack://.../node_modules/@smithy/middleware-retry/dist-es/retryMiddleware.js:27:32)

All @AWS-SDK dependencies in package.json are pinned to 3.716.0. We also explicitly declare @smithy/smithy-client@3.4.5 for the ServiceException type.

Based on the stacktrace, this appears to be a deserialization error. But I'm curious if there may be second problem when @smithy/middleware-serde tries appending a hint to the original error message, which appears to be where the error in the stacktrace above originates.

Regression Issue

• Select this option if this issue appears to be a regression.

SDK version number

@aws-sdk/client-cloudwatch-logs@3.716.0, @aws-sdk/client-efs@3.716.0, @aws-sdk/client-iam@3.716.0

Which JavaScript Runtime is this issue in?

Browser

Details of the browser/Node.js/ReactNative version

Chrome: 131.0.6778.265 Firefox: 133.0.3 Safari: 18.2

Reproduction Steps

This doesn't reproduce every time but it happens most frequently when sending these commands:

@aws-sdk/client-cloudwatch-logs

DescribeLogGroupsCommand

@aws-sdk/client-efs

DescribeFileSystemsCommand
DescribeAccessPointsCommand

@aws-sdk/client-iam

ListRolesCommand

Observed Behavior

Invoking send rejects with the error: Cannot set property message of which has only a getter

Expected Behavior

Invoking send resolves to the API response or rejects with a Smithy ServiceException.

Possible Solution

No response

Additional Information/Context

No response

[zshzbh]

Could you please post the package.json and minimal code reproduction of

@aws-sdk/client-iam

ListRolesCommand

in the comment?

Thanks!

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[kuhe]

the Error message field is writable by default. Do you have any code changing this behavior?

[mmayors]

@kuhe We transpile TypeScript to JS using babel but I don't see anything in our babel config that would alter this behavior. I don't have a reproducible sandbox but I can reproduce this within our app. I added console.log statements to node_modules/@smithy/middleware-serde/dist-es/deserializerMiddleware.js and wrapped the line that modifies the original error in a try/catch. I can confirm:

1. Iam.ListRoles returned a successful response here
2. When it tried parsing the response here the deserializer function threw a DOMException, which is the original error caught here:

3. When it tries modifying the original error message here , it throws another error:

   Cannot set property message of which has only a getter

   which might explain why this is the final error returned to the caller.

Some more observations:

• It doesn't look like a DOMException's message property should be writable: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/DOMException/message
• When navigating to a different route, we abort requests with an AbortContoller (passing an abortSignal). But that doesn't explain why a DOMException is thrown while parsing e.g. after getting a successful response.
• When we abort a request with an AbortController, the error thrown (and caught by deserializerMiddleware.js) isn't a DOMException. It's a generic Error object.