serverless/serverless · error · Error

An error occurred while getting location for bucket "${bucke

Error message

An error occurred while getting location for bucket "${bucketName}": ${err.message}

What it means

Thrown by getBucketLocation() when GetBucketLocationCommand fails with any error other than NoSuchBucket. The original error is wrapped in a plain Error: 'An error occurred while getting location for bucket ...: <err.message>'.

Source

Thrown at packages/engine/src/lib/aws/s3.js:151

   * @param {string} params.bucketName - The name of the S3 bucket.
   * @returns {Promise<string>} - The bucket location (region).
   */
  async getBucketLocation({ bucketName }) {
    try {
      const params = { Bucket: bucketName }
      const command = new GetBucketLocationCommand(params)
      const response = await this.client.send(command)

      // If LocationConstraint is empty, the bucket is in us-east-1
      return response.LocationConstraint || 'us-east-1'
    } catch (err) {
      const name = err.name
      if (err instanceof NoSuchBucket || name === 'NoSuchBucket') {
        throw new Error(
          `The bucket "${bucketName}" does not exist. Please check the bucket name and try again.`,
        )
      } else {
        throw new Error(
          `An error occurred while getting location for bucket "${bucketName}": ${err.message}`,
        )
      }
    }
  }

  /**
   * Gets the ACL settings of an S3 bucket.
   *
   * @param {Object} params - The parameters for getting the bucket ACL.
   * @param {string} params.bucketName - The name of the S3 bucket.
   * @returns {Promise<Object>} - The bucket ACL settings.
   */
  async getBucketAcl({ bucketName }) {
    try {
      const params = { Bucket: bucketName }
      const command = new GetBucketAclCommand(params)
      const response = await this.client.send(command)

View on GitHub (pinned to b9d7ea51c8)

Solutions

Grant s3:GetBucketLocation on the bucket — AWS requires this permission explicitly and it is frequently missing.
Inspect err.message for the underlying code.
If PermanentRedirect, configure the client for the bucket's actual region.
Retry on transient errors.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Type guard

function isLocationIoError(e) {
  return e instanceof Error && /An error occurred while getting location/.test(e.message)
}

Try / catch

try {
  return await s3.getBucketLocation({ bucketName })
} catch (e) {
  if (isLocationIoError(e)) {
    // s3:GetBucketLocation is frequently missing — grant it explicitly
  }
  throw e
}

Prevention

Explicitly grant s3:GetBucketLocation — AWS requires this permission by name.
Configure the client region to avoid PermanentRedirect.
Inspect the embedded err.message for the real AWS code.

When it happens

Trigger: GetBucketLocationCommand rejects with a non-NoSuchBucket error — AccessDenied, PermanentRedirect, throttling, or network failure.

Common situations: Missing s3:GetBucketLocation permission (AWS requires this specific permission, which is commonly overlooked); bucket in a different region (PermanentRedirect); throttling; credential issues.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of serverless/serverless@b9d7ea51c8 (2026-08-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/f34d86ac4b2d9b73. Report an issue: GitHub.