diff --git a/main.cpp b/main.cpp
index 82a1ff9..2345524 100644
--- a/main.cpp
+++ b/main.cpp
@@ -392,8 +392,11 @@ int main(int ac, const char* av[]) {
             string page = regex_search(req.raw_url, regex {"page=\\d+"}) ?
                           req.url_params.get("page") : "0";
 
+            // default value for limit is some large number, so that
+            // a call to api/mempool without any arguments return all
+            // mempool txs
             string limit = regex_search(req.raw_url, regex {"limit=\\d+"}) ?
-                           req.url_params.get("limit") : "25";
+                           req.url_params.get("limit") : "100000000";
 
             myxmr::jsonresponse r{xmrblocks.json_mempool(page, limit)};
 
diff --git a/src/page.h b/src/page.h
index b6308aa..299047c 100644
--- a/src/page.h
+++ b/src/page.h
@@ -4181,7 +4181,10 @@ namespace xmreg
                 }
                 catch (const std::out_of_range& e)
                 {
-                    break;
+                    j_response["status"]  = "error";
+                    j_response["message"] = fmt::format("Getting mempool txs failed due to std::out_of_range");
+
+                    return j_response;
                 }
 
                 const tx_details& txd = get_tx_details(a_pair->second, false, 1, height); // 1 is dummy here