HTTP 415 Unsupported Media Type

What does HTTP 415 mean?

The server does not support the format of the request body. Usually a wrong or missing Content-Type header — for example sending JSON without Content-Type: application/json, or uploading an image type the endpoint does not accept.

4xx Client error: The request has a problem the client can fix: wrong URL, missing credentials, bad data or too many requests.

Common causes of a 415 error

• Missing or wrong Content-Type header.

How to fix 415 Unsupported Media Type

• Set the correct Content-Type for the body you send.

415 and SEO

Not relevant for crawling.

Example response

HTTP/1.1 415 Unsupported Media Type

How to return a 415 response

Node.js (Express)

res.status(415).json({ error: 'Unsupported Media Type' });

PHP

http_response_code(415);

Python (Flask)

return {'error': 'Unsupported Media Type'}, 415

Go (net/http)

w.WriteHeader(415)

nginx

return 415;

Related status codes

• 400 Bad Request — The server cannot process the request because it is malformed.
• 406 Not Acceptable — The server cannot produce a response matching the client’s Accept headers.
• 422 Unprocessable Content — The request is well-formed but contains semantic errors.

Check which status code a URL returns with the HTTP header checker.