What causes "An error ocurred while deleting visitor" in RocketChat/Rocket.Chat?

Read the server log entry 'Error removing visitor' — the logged err field holds the actual Mongo error to act on

RocketChat/Rocket.Chat · error · Meteor.Error

error-removing-visitor

error-removing-visitor

Error message

An error ocurred while deleting visitor

What it means

Thrown by DELETE /api/v1/livechat/visitor/:token when removeContactsByVisitorId() throws while deleting the visitor's contact records. The visitor lookup and open-rooms check already passed, so this is a failure inside the deletion transaction itself. The original exception is logged (livechatLogger.error with msg 'Error removing visitor') before this generic error-livechat-removing-visitor is raised.

Solutions

Read the server log entry 'Error removing visitor' — the logged err field holds the actual Mongo error to act on
Retry the DELETE after the underlying DB issue clears (check Mongo health, disk, oplog)
If a specific contact document is corrupted, fix or remove it directly in the livechat_contacts collection, then retry
Verify the DB user has remove permissions on the contacts collection

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Try / catch

const body = await (await fetch(`${server}/api/v1/livechat/visitor/${token}`, { method: 'DELETE' })).json();
if (!body.success && body.error === 'error-removing-visitor') {
  // server log 'Error removing visitor' holds the root cause; safe to retry after DB check
  await notifyOps('visitor deletion failed — check livechatLogger');
}

Prevention

Retry once after confirming DB health — the underlying removeContactsByVisitorId failure is often transient
Alert ops with the rid/token so they can pull the logged err detail
Keep contact collections indexed and healthy for large-scale deletions

When it happens

Trigger: Mongo write failure or timeout while removing linked contact documents; corrupted contact references (visitor id present in contacts but document shape unexpected); database permission/lock issues during peak load.

Common situations: Large visitors with many contact records timing out; replica set step-down mid-delete; partial deletes leaving orphaned contact entries that fail subsequent cleanup.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of RocketChat/Rocket.Chat@b2c16d5842 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d7dc5f038e2149ce. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at apps/meteor/server/api/v1/omnichannel/visitor.ts:158

		).toArray();

		// if gdpr is enabled, bypass rooms check
		if (rooms?.length && !settings.get('Livechat_Allow_collect_and_store_HTTP_header_informations')) {
			throw new Meteor.Error('visitor-has-open-rooms', 'Cannot remove visitors with opened rooms');
		}

		const { _id } = visitor;
		try {
			await removeContactsByVisitorId({ _id });
			return API.v1.success({
				visitor: {
					_id,
					ts: new Date().toISOString(),
				},
			});
		} catch (e) {
			livechatLogger.error({ msg: 'Error removing visitor', err: e });
			throw new Meteor.Error('error-removing-visitor', 'An error ocurred while deleting visitor');
		}
	},
});

API.v1.addRoute(
	'livechat/visitor/:token/room',
	{ authRequired: true, permissionsRequired: ['view-livechat-manager'] },
	{
		async get() {
			const extraQuery = await callbacks.run('livechat.applyRoomRestrictions', {}, { userId: this.userId });
			const rooms = await LivechatRooms.findOpenByVisitorToken(
				this.urlParams.token,
				{
					projection: {
						name: 1,
						t: 1,
						cl: 1,
						u: 1,

View on GitHub (pinned to b2c16d5842)