Error: Expired certificate causes untrappable error / breaks NodeJS. (Fix included)

Using NodeJS 10.13 and LDAPjs 2.0.0-pre.5, when connecting to an LDAP server with a TLS SSL certificate that has expired an error occurs that cannot be handled or trapped via catch error handling in NodeJS. The fatal error that occurs is as follows:

Error: certificate has expired
    at TLSSocket.onConnectSecure (_tls_wrap.js:1055:34)
    at TLSSocket.emit (events.js:198:13)
    at TLSSocket.EventEmitter.emit (domain.js:448:20)
    at TLSSocket._finishInit (_tls_wrap.js:633:8)
Emitted 'error' event at:
    at Backoff.<anonymous> (...\node_modules\ldapjs\lib\client\client.js:1020:12)
    at Backoff.emit (events.js:198:13)
    at Backoff.EventEmitter.emit (domain.js:448:20)
    at Backoff.backoff (...\node_modules\backoff\lib\backoff.js:41:14)
    at ...\node_modules\ldapjs\lib\client\client.js:1002:15
    at f (...\node_modules\once\once.js:25:25)
    at TLSSocket.onResult (...\node_modules\ldapjs\lib\client\client.js:804:7)
    at Object.onceWrapper (events.js:286:20)
    at TLSSocket.emit (events.js:198:13)
    at TLSSocket.EventEmitter.emit (domain.js:448:20)

I was able to solve the issue by adding the following to client.js starting at lines 1006:

retry.on('fail', function (err) {
    if (self.destroyed) {
      // Silence any connect/setup errors if destroyed
      return
    }
    self.log.debug('failed to connect after %d attempts', failAfter)
    // Communicate the last-encountered error
    if (err instanceof ConnectionError) {
      self.emit('connectTimeout', err)
    } else if (err.code === 'ECONNREFUSED') {
      self.emit('connectRefused', err)
    } else if (err.code === 'CERT_HAS_EXPIRED' || err.code === 'UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE') {  // <-- THIS FIXED EXPIRED CERT ERROR
      self.emit('connectError', err)
    } else {
      self.emit('error', err)
    }
  })

The specific change that was added was:

} else if (err.code === 'CERT_HAS_EXPIRED'  || err.code === 'UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE') {
      self.emit('connectError', err)

Any variation of the above did not work for me, as this change worked perfectly. Please merge this fix to future updates. (I did not create a pull request but wanted to provide an important fix for the benefit of all users of this important library).

[tfrancois]

Thank you all for the feedback and assistance. I can confirm this resolves this issue. Interesting fact: I was listening for connectError which explains why I was not trapping the certificate expiration error, rather than the generic error. Listening for both types should resolve most if not all errors that may occur during client creation.

[jsumners]

Why not submit a PR?