If you’re getting an error code from your Uber app of “malformed request”, or something that is marked as error code 400, this usually means that there is a data issue happening within your app – a glitch.
The common cause of this error are believed to be that either the driver or passenger’s app needs to be updated. Typically, just updating the Uber app on your phone will solve this issue.
Sometimes a driver will recieve this message in a rider request, though it is less common these days. It used to mean that the rider needed to update their phone. Back then a common fix was to turn off wifi – for some reason this would solve the issue.
Another issue was if the app was not at the forefront of your phone, eg if you’re playing a game.
One app developer reviewed Uber’s status codes and noted it odd that “invalid content” and “malformed content” were marked separately – as normally they would be put together.
The error is less common now as Uber’s app has gotten more sophisticated.
However, if you do get the error, update your app, reboot your phone, and you should be good to go.
What other status and error codes does Uber have?
Here’s a list of all the status codes and their meanings, straight from the Uber developer reference guide:
| Status Code | Description |
|---|---|
| 200 | OK. Everything worked as expected. |
| 201 | Created. We will return a 201 after a successful POST where a resource was created. |
| 302 | Retry request on given redirect URI. |
| 400 | Malformed request. |
| 401 | Unauthorized. The request requires user authentication (not logged in). Also used for invalid OAuth 2.0 credentials. |
| 403 | Forbidden. Also used for unauthorized requests such as improper OAuth 2.0 scopes or permissions issues. |
| 403 | User not allowed. User is banned and is not permitted to request a ride. |
| 404 | Not found. |
| 406 | Unacceptable content type. Client sent an accepts header for a content type which does not exist on the server. Body includes a list of acceptable content types, such as “Unacceptable content type. Request resource as: application/json. |
| 409 | A conflict needs to be resolved before the request can be made. |
| 422 | Invalid request. The request body is parse-able however with invalid content or there are issues with a rider’s user account. |
| 429 | Too Many Requests. Exceeded the rate limit for requests. |
| 500 | Internal Server Error. |
| 503 | The backend server is not available. |
