205 Reset Content
The request succeeded and the client should reset the document view that sent it, typically clearing a form.
Status
HTTP/1.1 205 Reset Content
Details
- Category: 2xx
- Status: Standard. Registered with IANA and defined by a current standards-track RFC.
- Specification: RFC 9110 §15.3.6
- Cacheable: Only with explicit cache headers
- Response body: Must not be sent
- Retry: Not applicable
205 is 204 with an instruction attached: succeed, and clear the input that produced the request so the user can enter another entry. It was designed for data-entry workflows where the same form is submitted repeatedly.
Browser support for the reset behavior is inconsistent and almost all modern applications clear forms in JavaScript instead, so the code is seldom used. Like 204 it must not carry a body.
Common causes
- A data-entry endpoint acknowledged a submission and expects another one.
- Legacy intranet software written when the reset semantics were still relied on.
How to fix it
As the client
- Handle it as success. If you rely on the reset behavior, do it explicitly in code rather than trusting the user agent.
As the server
- Prefer 204, or 200 with an explicit instruction in the payload, unless you specifically need the legacy semantics.
- Send no body, exactly as with 204.
Examples
POST /entry/submit HTTP/1.1 Host: intranet.example.com Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded sample_id=A-1183&value=42 HTTP/1.1 205 Reset Content