overleaf/overleaf · error · NotFoundError

No docs for project ${projectId}

Error message

No docs for project ${projectId}

What it means

NotFoundError thrown by getAllNonDeletedDocs when getProjectsDocs returns null (not an empty array). null signals the project itself has no docs record/exists-no-docs condition rather than zero non-deleted docs, so it is treated as 'project not found'.

Source

Thrown at services/docstore/app/js/DocManager.js:150

    })
    if (!doc) throw new Errors.NotFoundError()
    if (!Array.isArray(doc.lines)) throw new Errors.DocWithoutLinesError()
    return doc.lines.join('\n')
  },

  async getAllDeletedDocs(projectId, filter) {
    return await MongoManager.getProjectsDeletedDocs(projectId, filter)
  },

  async getAllNonDeletedDocs(projectId, filter) {
    await DocArchive.unArchiveAllDocs(projectId)
    const docs = await MongoManager.getProjectsDocs(
      projectId,
      { include_deleted: false },
      filter
    )
    if (docs == null) {
      throw new Errors.NotFoundError(`No docs for project ${projectId}`)
    }
    if (filter.ranges) {
      for (const doc of docs) {
        RangeManager.fixCommentIds(doc)
      }
    }
    return docs
  },

  async getAllDocVersions(projectId) {
    // Do not unarchive all the docs: The version of archived docs is retained in mongo.
    return await MongoManager.getProjectsDocs(
      projectId,
      { include_deleted: false },
      { _id: true, version: true }
    )
  },

View on GitHub (pinned to 28ad3b03b7)

Solutions

  1. Catch NotFoundError and return an empty doc list if the project may legitimately have no docs
  2. Verify the projectId exists in the projects collection
  3. Confirm docs were flushed to docstore (web <-> docstore sync) before listing
  4. Correct the projectId at the call site

Example fix

// before
const docs = await docstore.getAllNonDeletedDocs(projectId) // throws
// after
let docs
try { docs = await docstore.getAllNonDeletedDocs(projectId) }
catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof Errors.NotFoundError) docs = []
  else throw e
}
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

// confirm project has any docs before listing non-deleted
const all = await docstore.getAllDocs(projectId).catch(() => [])
if (all.length === 0) return []

Type guard

function isProjectDocsNotFound(e) { return e && e.name === 'NotFoundError' && /No docs for project/.test(e.message) }

Try / catch

try { return await getAllNonDeletedDocs(projectId) } catch (e) { if (isProjectDocsNotFound(e)) return []; throw e }

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling getAllNonDeletedDocs for a projectId with no docs in mongo; project never had docs flushed; wrong projectId; project removed while docs collection emptied.

Common situations: Projects created but never written to docstore; fetching docs of a deleted project; id mix-ups between projects in a multi-tenant flow.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of overleaf/overleaf@28ad3b03b7 (2026-09-03). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3c5b9b988a0de788. Report an issue: GitHub.