Retrofit2 Handle condition when status code 200 but json structure different than datamodel class

So you have two different successful (status code 200) responses from the same endpoint. One being the actual data model and one being an error (both as a json structure like this?:

Valid LoginBean response:

{
  "id": 1234,
  "something": "something"
}

Error response

{
  "error": "error message"
}

What you can do is have an entity that wraps both cases and use a custom deserializer.

class LoginBeanResponse {
  @Nullable private final LoginBean loginBean;
  @Nullable private final ErrorMessage errorMessage;

  LoginBeanResponse(@Nullable LoginBean loginBean, @Nullable ErrorMessage errorMessage) {
    this.loginBean = loginBean;
    this.errorMessage = errorMessage;
  }
  // Add getters and whatever you need
}

A wrapper for the error:

class ErrorMessage {
  String errorMessage;
  // And whatever else you need
  // ...
}

Then you need a JsonDeserializer:

public class LoginBeanResponseDeserializer implements JsonDeserializer<LoginBeanResponse> {

  @Override
  public LoginBeanResponse deserialize(JsonElement json, Type typeOfT, JsonDeserializationContext context) throws JsonParseException {

    // Based on the structure you check if the data is valid or not
    // Example for the above defined structures:

    // Get JsonObject
    final JsonObject jsonObject = json.getAsJsonObject();
    if (jsonObject.has("error") {
      ErrorMessage errorMessage = new Gson().fromJson(jsonObject, ErrorMessage.class);
      return new LoginBeanResponse(null, errorMessage)
    } else {
      LoginBean loginBean = new Gson().fromJson(jsonObject, LoginBean.class):
      return new LoginBeanResponse(loginBean, null);
    }
  }
}

Then add this deserializer to the GsonConverterFactory:

GsonBuilder gsonBuilder = new GsonBuilder().registerTypeAdapter(LoginBeanResponse.class, new LoginBeanResponseDeserializer()).create():

apiClient = new Retrofit.Builder()
    .baseUrl(url)
    .addCallAdapterFactory(RxJava2CallAdapterFactory.create())
    .addConverterFactory(GsonConverterFactory.create(gsonBuilder))
    .client(httpClient)
    .build();

This is the only way I can think of making this work. But as already mentioned this kind of API design is just wrong because status codes are there for a reason. I still hope this helps.

EDIT: What you can then do inside the class where you make the call to that Retrofit (if you already converted from Call<LoginBeanResponse> to Single<LoginBeanResponse> with RxJava) is actually return a proper error. Something like:

Single<LoginBean> getLoginResponse(Map<String, String> queryMap) {
    restApi.getLoginResponse(queryMap)
        .map(loginBeanResponse -> { if(loginBeanResponse.isError()) {
            Single.error(new Throwable(loginBeanResponse.getError().getErrorMessage()))
        } else { 
            Single.just(loginBeanReponse.getLoginBean()) 
        }})
}

You can simply do that by doing this

try
{
String error = response.errorBody().string();
error = error.replace("\"", "");
Toast.makeText(getContext(), error, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
catch (IOException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}