All the fault policies for a composite are loaded when the first error occurs. When an error occurs, the Mediator Service Engine checks for the existence of the fault policy files (fault-policies.xml and fault-bindings.xml). The fault policy bindings are checked to determine the fault policy associated with the component or composite. If a fault policy is associated with the component or composite, then Mediator performs the action defined in the fault policy corresponding to the fault condition. If no fault policy bindings are found for the component or composite, then no action is performed and the behavior is the same as if the fault policies did not exist.

If there is no fault policy defined and the routing rule is executed in parallel, the default action of human intervention is performed. If there is no fault policy defined and the routing rule is executed sequentially, the error is thrown back to the caller.

For more information about how fault policies are processed, see Actions.