The LDAP defines a set of status codes that are returned with LDAP responses sent by the LDAP server (see RFC 2251). In the JNDI, error conditions are indicated as checked exceptions that are subclasses of NamingException. See the Naming Exceptions section for an overview of the JNDI exception classes.

The LDAP service provider translates the LDAP status code it receives from the LDAP server to the appropriate subclass of NamingException. The following table shows the mapping between LDAP status codes and JNDI exceptions.

LDAP Status Code	Meaning	Exception or Action
0	Success	Report success.
1	Operations error	NamingException
2	Protocol error	CommunicationException
3	Time limit exceeded.	TimeLimitExceededException
4	Size limit exceeded.	SizeLimitExceededException
5	Compared false.	Used by DirContext.search(). Does not generate an exception.
6	Compared true.	Used by DirContext.search(). Does not generate an exception.
7	Authentication method not supported.	AuthenticationNotSupportedException
8	Strong authentication required.	AuthenticationNotSupportedException
9	Partial results being returned.	If the environment property "java.naming.referral" is set to "ignore" or the contents of the error do not contain a referral, throw a PartialResultException. Otherwise, use contents to build a referral.
10	Referral encountered.	If the environment property "java.naming.referral" is set to "ignore", then ignore. If the property is set to "throw", throw ReferralException. If the property is set to "follow", then the LDAP provider processes the referral. If the "java.naming.ldap.referral.limit" property has been exceeded, throw LimitExceededException.
11	Administrative limit exceeded.	LimitExceededException
12	Unavailable critical extension requested.	OperationNotSupportedException
13	Confidentiality required.	AuthenticationNotSupportedException
14	SASL bind in progress.	Used internally by the LDAP provider during authentication.
16	No such attribute exists.	NoSuchAttributeException
17	An undefined attribute type.	InvalidAttributeIdentifierException
18	Inappropriate matching	InvalidSearchFilterException
19	A constraint violation.	InvalidAttributeValueException
20	An attribute or value already in use.	AttributeInUseException
21	An invalid attribute syntax.	InvalidAttributeValueException
32	No such object exists.	NameNotFoundException
33	Alias problem	NamingException
34	An invalid DN syntax.	InvalidNameException
35	Is a leaf.	Used by the LDAP provider; usually doesn't generate an exception.
36	Alias dereferencing problem	NamingException
48	Inappropriate authentication	AuthenticationNotSupportedException
49	Invalid credentials	AuthenticationException
50	Insufficient access rights	NoPermissionException
51	Busy	ServiceUnavailableException
52	Unavailable	ServiceUnavailableException
53	Unwilling to perform	OperationNotSupportedException
54	Loop detected.	NamingException
64	Naming violation	InvalidNameException
65	Object class violation	SchemaViolationException
66	Not allowed on non-leaf.	ContextNotEmptyException
67	Not allowed on RDN.	SchemaViolationException
68	Entry already exists.	NameAlreadyBoundException
69	Object class modifications prohibited.	SchemaViolationException
71	Affects multiple DSAs.	NamingException
80	Other	NamingException