MassTransit: How should I handle error queues?

Question

I saw a question & its answer below;

https://mcmap.net/q/206586/-masstransit-error-queue-is-consuming-but-still-is-not-empty

Although I understood that I cannot do anything for the error queue via MassTransit, what should I handle the error queue? Error messages would be accumlating. It's pressing storage capacity.

It seems that I have nothing to do for the error queue. Is there no choice but to remove them? If so, I cannot imagine a meaning of the error queue.

Dallapiccola

Answer 1

The meaning of error queues is very simple. Messages come to error queues because, well, of errors! When you fix issues in your application, you can move messages from the error queue back to the regular queue using Shovel plugin, and voila - you recovered lost data. We do this very often.

If you cannot move them back because these messages aren't actual anymore or they contain wrong data - this is also very valuable since using these messages you can reproduce the issue and see if you can fix the sender.

Ornery

I get that it is the preferred way, but allowing for a normal consumption of those messages via MT would sometimes be correct. MT seems to block this scenarion, and move them into a skipped queue, wuthout the consumer being able to stop it. – Tressa

@RomainVergnory skipped queue is the dead-letter queue. The question was about the error queue, which is the poison queue. I am not sure why are you referring to the skipped queue here. – Ornery