How do I cancel an HTTP fetch() request?

TL/DR:

fetch now supports a signal parameter as of 20 September 2017, but not all browsers seem support this at the moment.

2020 UPDATE: Most major browsers (Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and a few others) support the feature, which has become part of the DOM living standard. (as of 5 March 2020)

This is a change we will be seeing very soon though, and so you should be able to cancel a request by using an AbortControllers AbortSignal.

Long Version

How to:

The way it works is this:

Step 1: You create an AbortController (For now I just used this)

const controller = new AbortController()

Step 2: You get the AbortControllers signal like this:

const signal = controller.signal

Step 3: You pass the signal to fetch like so:

fetch(urlToFetch, {
    method: 'get',
    signal: signal, // <------ This is our AbortSignal
})

Step 4: Just abort whenever you need to:

controller.abort();

Here's an example of how it would work (works on Firefox 57+):

<script>
    // Create an instance.
    const controller = new AbortController()
    const signal = controller.signal

    /*
    // Register a listenr.
    signal.addEventListener("abort", () => {
        console.log("aborted!")
    })
    */


    function beginFetching() {
        console.log('Now fetching');
        var urlToFetch = "https://httpbin.org/delay/3";

        fetch(urlToFetch, {
                method: 'get',
                signal: signal,
            })
            .then(function(response) {
                console.log(`Fetch complete. (Not aborted)`);
            }).catch(function(err) {
                console.error(` Err: ${err}`);
            });
    }


    function abortFetching() {
        console.log('Now aborting');
        // Abort.
        controller.abort()
    }

</script>



<h1>Example of fetch abort</h1>
<hr>
<button onclick="beginFetching();">
    Begin
</button>
<button onclick="abortFetching();">
    Abort
</button>

Sources:

• The final version of AbortController has been added to the DOM specification
• The corresponding PR for the fetch specification is now merged.
• Browser bugs tracking the implementation of AbortController is available here: Firefox: #1378342, Chromium: #750599, WebKit: #174980, Edge: #13009916.

As of Feb 2018, fetch() can be cancelled with the code below on Chrome (read Using Readable Streams to enable Firefox support). No error is thrown for catch() to pick up, and this is a temporary solution until AbortController is fully adopted.

fetch('YOUR_CUSTOM_URL')
.then(response => {
  if (!response.body) {
    console.warn("ReadableStream is not yet supported in this browser.  See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/ReadableStream")
    return response;
  }

  // get reference to ReadableStream so we can cancel/abort this fetch request.
  const responseReader = response.body.getReader();
  startAbortSimulation(responseReader);

  // Return a new Response object that implements a custom reader.
  return new Response(new ReadableStream(new ReadableStreamConfig(responseReader)));
})
.then(response => response.blob())
.then(data => console.log('Download ended. Bytes downloaded:', data.size))
.catch(error => console.error('Error during fetch()', error))


// Here's an example of how to abort request once fetch() starts
function startAbortSimulation(responseReader) {
  // abort fetch() after 50ms
  setTimeout(function() {
    console.log('aborting fetch()...');
    responseReader.cancel()
    .then(function() {
      console.log('fetch() aborted');
    })
  },50)
}


// ReadableStream constructor requires custom implementation of start() method
function ReadableStreamConfig(reader) {
  return {
    start(controller) {
      read();
      function read() {
        reader.read().then(({done,value}) => {
          if (done) {
            controller.close();
            return;
          }
          controller.enqueue(value);
          read();
        })
      }
    }
  }
}

https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/abortable-fetch

https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/#aborting-ongoing-activities

// setup AbortController
const controller = new AbortController();
// signal to pass to fetch
const signal = controller.signal;

// fetch as usual
fetch(url, { signal }).then(response => {
  ...
}).catch(e => {
  // catch the abort if you like
  if (e.name === 'AbortError') {
    ...
  }
});

// when you want to abort
controller.abort();

works in edge 16 (2017-10-17), firefox 57 (2017-11-14), desktop safari 11.1 (2018-03-29), ios safari 11.4 (2018-03-29), chrome 67 (2018-05-29), and later.

on older browsers, you can use github's whatwg-fetch polyfill and AbortController polyfill. you can detect older browsers and use the polyfills conditionally, too:

import 'abortcontroller-polyfill/dist/abortcontroller-polyfill-only'
import {fetch} from 'whatwg-fetch'

// use native browser implementation if it supports aborting
const abortableFetch = ('signal' in new Request('')) ? window.fetch : fetch