From 45de779d5fa75721dd8bb1865c3e63a8ba8c4976 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Adam Harvey <adam.harvey@dxc.com>
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 16:20:07 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] Add changeset

---
 .changeset/green-rabbits-burn.md |  5 +++++
 plugins/techdocs/src/api.ts      | 24 ++++++++++++++++--------
 2 files changed, 21 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 .changeset/green-rabbits-burn.md

diff --git a/.changeset/green-rabbits-burn.md b/.changeset/green-rabbits-burn.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..5af68c2000
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changeset/green-rabbits-burn.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+'@backstage/plugin-techdocs': patch
+---
+
+Enhance API calls to support trapping 500 errors from techdocs-backend
diff --git a/plugins/techdocs/src/api.ts b/plugins/techdocs/src/api.ts
index 3a950aeeb3..5f2cf924d7 100644
--- a/plugins/techdocs/src/api.ts
+++ b/plugins/techdocs/src/api.ts
@@ -119,14 +119,22 @@ export class TechDocsStorageApi implements TechDocsStorage {
       `${url.endsWith('/') ? url : `${url}/`}index.html`,
     );
 
-    if (request.status === 404) {
-      let errorMessage = 'Page not found. ';
-      // path is empty for the home page of an entity's docs site
-      if (!path) {
-        errorMessage +=
-          'This could be because there is no index.md file in the root of the docs directory of this repository.';
-      }
-      throw new Error(errorMessage);
+    let errorMessage = '';
+    switch (request.status) {
+      case 404:
+        errorMessage = 'Page not found. ';
+        // path is empty for the home page of an entity's docs site
+        if (!path) {
+          errorMessage +=
+            'This could be because there is no index.md file in the root of the docs directory of this repository.';
+        }
+        throw new Error(errorMessage);
+      case 500:
+        errorMessage = 'Could not generate documentation. ';
+        throw new Error(errorMessage);
+      default:
+        // Do nothing
+        break;
     }
 
     return request.text();