# Silent pass of missing handler on notify

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/silent-pass-of-missing-handler-on-notify/20829>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [March 10, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/silent-pass-of-missing-handler-on-notify/20829 "2016-03-10T15:33:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Patrick\_Glomski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b487fb/32.png) [@Patrick\_Glomski](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Patrick_Glomski)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/silent-pass-of-missing-handler-on-notify/20829/1 "2016-03-10T15:33:52Z")

</div>

With ansible 2.0.1.0, If I call missing handlers / handlers that are not defined, they are silently ignored. Is that expected behavior? If so, is there any way to check existence and force a failure when a handler I declare doesn’t exist? I can’t think of many situations where I’d like it to just keep running and claim success.

> - debug: msg=“expected behavior to not fail?”  
> changed\_when: true  
> notify:
> - nonexistent\_handler

> TASK [debug] \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*  
> task path: /data/tst.yml:44  
> NOTIFIED HANDLER nonexistent\_handler  
> ok: [testbox] =\> {  
> “msg”: “expected behavior to not fail?”  
> }
> 
> PLAY RECAP \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*  
> testbox : ok=2 changed=1 unreachable=0 failed=0

Thanks,  
Patrick