How to Handle Job Failures in Laravel 12 with FailOnException

Streamline your job exception logic with Laravel's FailOnException middleware – no more boilerplate try/catch blocks!

Introduction

In Laravel 12, handling job exceptions is cleaner than ever thanks to the FailOnException middleware. Previously, you'd often write verbose try/catch blocks inside your queued job's handle() method.

Now, with FailOnException, you can move exception handling out of the method and into middleware — resulting in more maintainable and readable code.

The Traditional Way (Verbose)

Here’s the older approach many Laravel developers use:

public function handle(TranslateContent $action): void
{
    try {
        $action->handle($this->content);
    } catch (Throwable $exception) {
        if ($exception instanceof InvalidContentFormatException) {
            $this->fail($exception);
            return;
        }

        throw $exception;
    }
}

Problems with the Traditional Approach

• Repetitive boilerplate across jobs.
• Obscures the business logic (main handle() intent).
• Easy to forget to rethrow exceptions or call $this->fail() properly.

The Laravel 12 Way (Elegant)

Here’s the cleaner version using FailOnException:

public function handle(TranslateContent $action): void
{
    $action->handle($this->content);
}

Then define the middleware:

public function middleware(): array
{
    return [
        new FailOnException([InvalidContentFormatException::class]),
    ];
}

Final Example Class

<?php

use DateTime;
use Throwable;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Bus\Dispatchable;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Queue\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;
use Illuminate\Queue\Middleware\FailOnException;

class ProcessContentTranslation implements ShouldQueue
{
    use Dispatchable, Queueable;

    public function __construct(private readonly Content $content) {}

    public function handle(TranslateContent $action): void
    {
        $action->handle($this->content);
    }

    public function retryUntil(): DateTime
    {
        return now()->addHours(5);
    }

    public function middleware(): array
    {
        return [
            new FailOnException([InvalidContentFormatException::class]),
        ];
    }
}