Undefined is not a function ошибка

Google Chrome, JavaScript

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JavaScript can be a nightmare to debug: Some errors it gives can be very difficult to understand at first, and the line numbers given aren’t always helpful either. Wouldn’t it be useful to have a list where you could look to find out what they mean and how to fix them? Here you go!

Below is a list of the strange errors in JavaScript. Different browsers can give you different messages for the same error, so there are several different examples where applicable.

How to read errors?

Before the list, let’s quickly look at the structure of an error message. Understanding the structure helps understand the errors, and you’ll have less trouble if you run into any errors not listed here.

A typical error from Chrome looks like this:

Uncaught TypeError: undefined is not a function

The structure of the error is as follows:

1. Uncaught TypeError: This part of the message is usually not very useful. Uncaught means the error was not caught in a catch statement, and TypeError is the error’s name.
2. undefined is not a function: This is the message part. With error messages, you have to read them very literally. For example in this case it literally means that the code attempted to use undefined like it was a function.

Other webkit-based browsers, like Safari, give errors in a similar format to Chrome. Errors from Firefox are similar, but do not always include the first part, and recent versions of Internet Explorer also give simpler errors than Chrome – but in this case, simpler does not always mean better.

Now onto the actual errors.

Uncaught TypeError: undefined is not a function

Related errors: number is not a function, object is not a function, string is not a function, Unhandled Error: ‘foo’ is not a function, Function Expected

Occurs when attempting to call a value like a function, where the value is not a function. For example:

var foo = undefined;
foo();

This error typically occurs if you are trying to call a function in an object, but you typed the name wrong.

var x = document.getElementByID('foo');

Since object properties that don’t exist are undefined by default, the above would result in this error.

The other variations such as “number is not a function” occur when attempting to call a number like it was a function.

How to fix this error: Ensure the function name is correct. With this error, the line number will usually point at the correct location.

Uncaught ReferenceError: Invalid left-hand side in assignment

Related errors: Uncaught exception: ReferenceError: Cannot assign to ‘functionCall()’, Uncaught exception: ReferenceError: Cannot assign to ‘this’

Caused by attempting to assign a value to something that cannot be assigned to.

The most common example of this error is with if-clauses:

if(doSomething() = 'somevalue')

In this example, the programmer accidentally used a single equals instead of two. The message “left-hand side in assignment” is referring to the part on the left side of the equals sign, so like you can see in the above example, the left-hand side contains something you can’t assign to, leading to the error.

How to fix this error: Make sure you’re not attempting to assign values to function results or to the this keyword.

Uncaught TypeError: Converting circular structure to JSON

Related errors: Uncaught exception: TypeError: JSON.stringify: Not an acyclic Object, TypeError: cyclic object value, Circular reference in value argument not supported

Always caused by a circular reference in an object, which is then passed into JSON.stringify.

var a = { };
var b = { a: a };
a.b = b;
JSON.stringify(a);

Because both a and b in the above example have a reference to each other, the resulting object cannot be converted into JSON.

How to fix this error: Remove circular references like in the example from any objects you want to convert into JSON.

Unexpected token ;

Related errors: Expected ), missing ) after argument list

The JavaScript interpreter expected something, but it wasn’t there. Typically caused by mismatched parentheses or brackets.

The token in this error can vary – it might say “Unexpected token ]” or “Expected {” etc.

How to fix this error: Sometimes the line number with this error doesn’t point to the correct place, making it difficult to fix.

• An error with [ ] { } ( ) is usually caused by a mismatching pair. Check that all your parentheses and brackets have a matching pair. In this case, line number will often point to something else than the problem character
• Unexpected / is related to regular expressions. The line number for this will usually be correct.
• Unexpected ; is usually caused by having a ; inside an object or array literal, or within the argument list of a function call. The line number will usually be correct for this case as well

Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL

Related errors: Unterminated String Literal, Invalid Line Terminator

A string literal is missing the closing quote.

How to fix this error: Ensure all strings have the correct closing quote.

Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘foo’ of null, Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘foo’ of undefined

Related errors: TypeError: someVal is null, Unable to get property ‘foo’ of undefined or null reference

Attempting to read null or undefined as if it was an object. For example:

var someVal = null;
console.log(someVal.foo);

How to fix this error: Usually caused by typos. Check that the variables used near the line number pointed by the error are correctly named.

Uncaught TypeError: Cannot set property ‘foo’ of null, Uncaught TypeError: Cannot set property ‘foo’ of undefined

Related errors: TypeError: someVal is undefined, Unable to set property ‘foo’ of undefined or null reference

Attempting to write null or undefined as if it was an object. For example:

var someVal = null;
someVal.foo = 1;

How to fix this error: This too is usually caused by typos. Check the variable names near the line the error points to.

Uncaught RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded

Related errors: Uncaught exception: RangeError: Maximum recursion depth exceeded, too much recursion, Stack overflow

Usually caused by a bug in program logic, causing infinite recursive function calls.

How to fix this error: Check recursive functions for bugs that could cause them to keep recursing forever.

Uncaught URIError: URI malformed

Related errors: URIError: malformed URI sequence

Caused by an invalid decodeURIComponent call.

How to fix this error: Check that the decodeURIComponent call at the error’s line number gets correct input.

XMLHttpRequest cannot load http://some/url/. No ‘Access-Control-Allow-Origin’ header is present on the requested resource

Related errors: Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at http://some/url/

This error is always caused by the usage of XMLHttpRequest.

How to fix this error: Ensure the request URL is correct and it respects the same-origin policy. A good way to find the offending code is to look at the URL in the error message and find it from your code.

InvalidStateError: An attempt was made to use an object that is not, or is no longer, usable

Related errors: InvalidStateError, DOMException code 11

Means the code called a function that you should not call at the current state. Occurs usually with XMLHttpRequest, when attempting to call functions on it before it’s ready.

var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.setRequestHeader('Some-Header', 'val');

In this case, you would get the error because the setRequestHeader function can only be called after calling xhr.open.

How to fix this error: Look at the code on the line pointed by the error and make sure it runs at the correct time, or add any necessary calls before it (such as xhr.open)

Conclusion

JavaScript has some of the most unhelpful errors I’ve seen, with the exception of the notorious Expected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM in PHP. With more familiarity the errors start to make more sense. Modern browsers also help, as they no longer give the completely useless errors they used to.

What’s the most confusing error you’ve seen? Share the frustration in the comments!

Want to learn more about these errors and how to prevent them? Detect Problems in JavaScript Automatically with ESLint.

To give back to our community of developers, we looked at our database of thousands of projects and found the top 10 errors in JavaScript. We’re going to show you what causes them and how to prevent them from happening. If you avoid these «gotchas,» it’ll make you a better developer.

Because data is king, we collected, analyzed, and ranked the top 10 JavaScript errors. Rollbar collects all the errors for each project and summarizes how many times each one occurred. We do this by grouping errors according to their fingerprints. Basically, we group two errors if the second one is just a repeat of the first. This gives users a nice overview instead of an overwhelming big dump like you’d see in a log file.

We focused on the errors most likely to affect you and your users. To do this, we ranked errors by the number of projects experiencing them across different companies. If we looked only at the total number of times each error occurred, then high-volume customers could overwhelm the data set with errors that are not relevant to most readers.

Here are the top 10 JavaScript errors:

Each error has been shortened for easier readability. Let’s dive deeper into each one to determine what can cause it and how you can avoid creating it.

1. Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property

If you’re a JavaScript developer, you’ve probably seen this error more than you care to admit. This one occurs in Chrome when you read a property or call a method on an undefined object. You can test this very easily in the Chrome Developer Console.

Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property can occur for many reasons, but a common one is improper initialization of state while rendering the UI components. Let’s look at an example of how this can occur in a real-world app. We’ll pick React, but the same principles of improper initialization also apply to Angular, Vue or any other framework.

class Quiz extends Component {
  componentWillMount() {
    axios.get('/thedata').then(res => {
      this.setState({items: res.data});
    });
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <ul>
        {this.state.items.map(item =>
          <li key={item.id}>{item.name}</li>
        )}
      </ul>
    );
  }
}

There are two important things realize here:

1. A component’s state (e.g. this.state) begins life as undefined.
2. When you fetch data asynchronously, the component will render at least once before the data is loaded – regardless of whether it’s fetched in the constructor, componentWillMount or componentDidMount. When Quiz first renders, this.state.items is undefined. This, in turn, means ItemList gets items as undefined, and you get an error – «Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘map’ of undefined» in the console.

This is easy to fix. The simplest way: Initialize state with reasonable default values in the constructor.

class Quiz extends Component {
  // Added this:
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);

    // Assign state itself, and a default value for items
    this.state = {
      items: []
    };
  }

  componentWillMount() {
    axios.get('/thedata').then(res => {
      this.setState({items: res.data});
    });
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <ul>
        {this.state.items.map(item =>
          <li key={item.id}>{item.name}</li>
        )}
      </ul>
    );
  }
}

The exact code in your app might be different, but we hope we’ve given you enough of a clue to either fix or avoid this problem in your app. If not, keep reading because we’ll cover more examples for related errors below.

2. TypeError: ‘undefined’ is not an object (evaluating

This is an error that occurs in Safari when you read a property or call a method on an undefined object. You can test this very easily in the Safari Developer Console. This is essentially the same as the above error for Chrome, but Safari uses a different error message.

3. TypeError: null is not an object (evaluating

This is an error that occurs in Safari when you read a property or call a method on a null object. You can test this very easily in the Safari Developer Console.

Interestingly, in JavaScript, null and undefined are not the same, which is why we see two different error messages. Undefined is usually a variable that has not been assigned, while null means the value is blank. To verify they are not equal, try using the strict equality operator:

One way this error might occur in a real world example is if you try using a DOM element in your JavaScript before the element is loaded. That’s because the DOM API returns null for object references that are blank.

Any JS code that executes and deals with DOM elements should execute after the DOM elements have been created. JS code is interpreted from top to down as laid out in the HTML. So, if there is a tag before the DOM elements, the JS code within script tag will execute as the browser parses the HTML page. You will get this error if the DOM elements have not been created before loading the script.

In this example, we can resolve the issue by adding an event listener that will notify us when the page is ready. Once the addEventListener is fired, the init() method can make use of the DOM elements.

<script>
  function init() {
    var myButton = document.getElementById("myButton");
    var myTextfield = document.getElementById("myTextfield");
    myButton.onclick = function() {
      var userName = myTextfield.value;
    }
  }
  document.addEventListener('readystatechange', function() {
    if (document.readyState === "complete") {
      init();
    }
  });
</script>

<form>
  <input type="text" id="myTextfield" placeholder="Type your name" />
  <input type="button" id="myButton" value="Go" />
</form>

4. (unknown): Script error

The (unknown): Script error occurs when an uncaught JavaScript error crosses domain boundaries in violation of the cross-origin policy. For example, if you host your JavaScript code on a CDN, any uncaught errors (errors that bubble up to the window.onerror handler, instead of being caught in try-catch) will get reported as simply «Script error» instead of containing useful information. This is a browser security measure intended to prevent passing data across domains that otherwise wouldn’t be allowed to communicate.

To get the real error messages, do the following:

1. Send the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header

Setting the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header to signifies that the resource can be accessed properly from any domain. You can replace with your domain if necessary: for example, Access-Control-Allow-Origin: www.example.com. However, handling multiple domains gets tricky, and may not be worth the effort if you’re using a CDN due to caching issues that may arise. See more here.

Here are some examples on how to set this header in various environments:

Apache

In the folders where your JavaScript files will be served from, create an .htaccess file with the following contents:

Header add Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"

Nginx

Add the add_header directive to the location block that serves your JavaScript files:

location ~ ^/assets/ {
    add_header Access-Control-Allow-Origin *;
}

HAProxy

Add the following to your asset backend where JavaScript files are served from:

rspadd Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *

2. Set crossorigin=»anonymous» on the script tag

In your HTML source, for each of the scripts that you’ve set the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header for, set crossorigin="anonymous" on the SCRIPT tag. Make sure you verify that the header is being sent for the script file before adding the crossorigin property on the script tag. In Firefox, if the crossorigin attribute is present but the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header is not, the script won’t be executed.

5. TypeError: Object doesn’t support property

This is an error that occurs in IE when you call an undefined method. You can test this in the IE Developer Console.

This is equivalent to the error «TypeError: ‘undefined’ is not a function» in Chrome. Yes, different browsers can have different error messages for the same logical error.

This is a common problem for IE in web applications that employ JavaScript namespacing. When this is the case, the problem 99.9% of the time is IE’s inability to bind methods within the current namespace to the this keyword. For example, if you have the JS namespace Rollbar with the method isAwesome. Normally, if you are within the Rollbar namespace you can invoke the isAwesome method with the following syntax:

this.isAwesome();

Chrome, Firefox and Opera will happily accept this syntax. IE, on the other hand, will not. Thus, the safest bet when using JS namespacing is to always prefix with the actual namespace.

Rollbar.isAwesome();

6. TypeError: ‘undefined’ is not a function

This is an error that occurs in Chrome when you call an undefined function. You can test this in the Chrome Developer Console and Mozilla Firefox Developer Console.

As JavaScript coding techniques and design patterns have become increasingly sophisticated over the years, there’s been a corresponding increase in the proliferation of self-referencing scopes within callbacks and closures, which are a fairly common source of this/that confusion.

Consider this example code snippet:

function clearBoard(){
  alert("Cleared");
}

document.addEventListener("click", function(){
  this.clearBoard(); // what is “this” ?
});

If you execute the above code and then click on the page, it results in the following error «Uncaught TypeError: this.clearBoard is not a function». The reason is that the anonymous function being executed is in the context of the document, whereas clearBoard is defined on the window.

A traditional, old-browser-compliant solution is to simply save your reference to this in a variable that can then be inherited by the closure. For example:

var self=this;  // save reference to 'this', while it's still this!
document.addEventListener("click", function(){
  self.clearBoard();
});

Alternatively, in the newer browsers, you can use the bind() method to pass the proper reference:

document.addEventListener("click",this.clearBoard.bind(this));

7. Uncaught RangeError

This is an error that occurs in Chrome under a couple of circumstances. One is when you call a recursive function that does not terminate. You can test this in the Chrome Developer Console.

It may also happen if you pass a value to a function that is out of range. Many functions accept only a specific range of numbers for their input values. For example, Number.toExponential(digits) and Number.toFixed(digits) accept digits from 0 to 100, and Number.toPrecision(digits) accepts digits from 1 to 100.

var a = new Array(4294967295);  //OK
var b = new Array(-1); //range error

var num = 2.555555;
document.writeln(num.toExponential(4));  //OK
document.writeln(num.toExponential(-2)); //range error!

num = 2.9999;
document.writeln(num.toFixed(2));   //OK
document.writeln(num.toFixed(105));  //range error!

num = 2.3456;
document.writeln(num.toPrecision(1));   //OK
document.writeln(num.toPrecision(0));  //range error!

8. TypeError: Cannot read property ‘length’

This is an error that occurs in Chrome because of reading length property for an undefined variable. You can test this in the Chrome Developer Console.

You normally find length defined on an array, but you might run into this error if the array is not initialized or if the variable name is hidden in another context. Let’s understand this error with the following example.

var testArray= ["Test"];

function testFunction(testArray) {
    for (var i = 0; i < testArray.length; i++) {
      console.log(testArray[i]);
    }
}

testFunction();

When you declare a function with parameters, these parameters become local ones. This means that even if you have variables with names testArray, parameters with the same names within a function will still be treated as local.

You have two ways to resolve your issue:

1. Remove parameters in the function declaration statement (it turns out you want to access those variables that are declared outside of the function, so you don’t need parameters for your function):

   var testArray = ["Test"];
   
   /* Precondition: defined testArray outside of a function */
   function testFunction(/* No params */) {
      for (var i = 0; i < testArray.length; i++) {
        console.log(testArray[i]);
      }
   }
   
   testFunction();

2. Invoke the function passing it the array that we declared:

   var testArray = ["Test"];
   
   function testFunction(testArray) {
     for (var i = 0; i < testArray.length; i++) {
        console.log(testArray[i]);
      }
   }
   
   testFunction(testArray);

9. Uncaught TypeError: Cannot set property

When we try to access an undefined variable it always returns undefined and we cannot get or set any property of undefined. In that case, an application will throw “Uncaught TypeError cannot set property of undefined.”

For example, in the Chrome browser:

If the test object does not exist, error will throw “Uncaught TypeError cannot set property of undefined.”

10. ReferenceError: event is not defined

This error is thrown when you try to access a variable that is undefined or is outside the current scope. You can test it very easily in Chrome browser.

If you’re getting this error when using the event handling system, make sure you use the event object passed in as a parameter. Older browsers like IE offer a global variable event, and Chrome automatically attaches the event variable to the handler. Firefox will not automatically add it. Libraries like jQuery attempt to normalize this behavior. Nevertheless, it’s best practice to use the one passed into your event handler function.

document.addEventListener("mousemove", function (event) {
  console.log(event);
})

Conclusion

It turns out a lot of these are null or undefined errors. A good static type checking system like Typescript could help you avoid them if you use the strict compiler option. It can warn you if a type is expected but has not been defined. Even without Typescript, it helps to use guard clauses to check whether objects are undefined before using them.

We hope you learned something new and can avoid errors in the future, or that this guide helped you solve a head scratcher. Nevertheless, even with the best practices, unexpected errors do pop up in production. It’s important to have visibility into errors that affect your users, and to have good tools to solve them quickly.

Rollbar gives you visibility to production JavaScript errors and gives you more context to solve them quickly. For example, it offers additional debugging features like telemetry which tells you what happened on the user’s browser leading up to the error. That’s insight you don’t have outside of your local developer console. Learn more in Rollbar’s full list of features for JavaScript applications.

If you haven’t already, signup for a 14-day free trial of Rollbar and let us help you take control of impactful JavaScript errors. 🙂