VALIDATION_ERROR - Devotel Orbit Documentation

What this error means

VALIDATION_ERROR is returned with HTTP status 422 when the request payload fails schema validation: a required field is missing, a value has the wrong type or an unknown enum member, or a cross-field rule is violated. The request is not queued or partially processed; nothing is sent and no credits are deducted. Every response for this error carries this page’s address in meta.docs_url:

{
  "error": {
    "code": "VALIDATION_ERROR",
    "message": "Scheduled_at: must be a future timestamp",
    "status": 422,
    "details": {
      "issues": [
        { "field": "scheduled_at", "message": "must be a future timestamp" }
      ]
    }
  },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "req_01J9ZKQ3V8",
    "docs_url": "https://docs.orbit.devotel.io/errors/VALIDATION_ERROR"
  }
}

Cause

The details.issues array names each offending field and what went wrong; schema-level rejections carry the same information in details.validation. The most common causes are:

Submitted value	Why it fails
`to_number` omitted entirely	A required field is missing from the body
`"limit": "ten"`	Wrong type: a number was expected
`"channel": "myspace"`	Unknown enum member: not a supported channel
Both `contact_id` and `identifier` set	A cross-field rule requires exactly one
`"scheduled_at"` in the past	The value is well-formed but not currently acceptable

How to fix it

Read details.issues. Each entry pairs a field path with a message; fix every listed field, not just the first, so the next attempt does not round-trip one issue at a time.
Do not retry unchanged. This is a deterministic rejection: the request will fail identically until the payload changes. Retrying without a fix only burns rate-limit budget.
Validate early on your side. Checking required fields, types, and enum values before sending catches most issues before they reach the API.
Check the endpoint’s reference page. Field names, accepted formats, and cross-field rules are documented per endpoint in the API reference.

Once the payload is corrected, resend the request; earlier attempts changed nothing server-side.

Error Code Reference — validation codes sit in the deterministic reject class: never retry until the payload changes.
Validation gates runbook — decoding details and fixing the payload field by field.
Error Handling Examples — response-envelope handling patterns in code.

​What this error means

​Cause

​How to fix it

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What this error means

Cause

How to fix it

Related