diff --git a/core/java/android/hardware/soundtrigger/SoundTrigger.java b/core/java/android/hardware/soundtrigger/SoundTrigger.java
index 98c4f618be188..d12142c0be791 100644
--- a/core/java/android/hardware/soundtrigger/SoundTrigger.java
+++ b/core/java/android/hardware/soundtrigger/SoundTrigger.java
@@ -1880,6 +1880,8 @@ public class SoundTrigger {
                     return STATUS_PERMISSION_DENIED;
                 case Status.DEAD_OBJECT:
                     return STATUS_DEAD_OBJECT;
+                case Status.INTERNAL_ERROR:
+                    return STATUS_ERROR;
             }
             return STATUS_ERROR;
         }
diff --git a/media/java/android/media/soundtrigger_middleware/Status.aidl b/media/java/android/media/soundtrigger_middleware/Status.aidl
index 85ccacf21c8d7..c7623f5bf4910 100644
--- a/media/java/android/media/soundtrigger_middleware/Status.aidl
+++ b/media/java/android/media/soundtrigger_middleware/Status.aidl
@@ -30,4 +30,9 @@ enum Status {
     TEMPORARY_PERMISSION_DENIED = 3,
     /** The object on which this method is called is dead and all of its state is lost. */
     DEAD_OBJECT = 4,
+    /**
+     * Unexpected internal error has occurred. Usually this will result in the service rebooting
+     * shortly after. The client should treat the state of the server as undefined.
+     */
+    INTERNAL_ERROR = 5,
 }
diff --git a/services/core/java/com/android/server/soundtrigger_middleware/InternalServerError.java b/services/core/java/com/android/server/soundtrigger_middleware/InternalServerError.java
deleted file mode 100644
index e1fb2266b7c6e..0000000000000
--- a/services/core/java/com/android/server/soundtrigger_middleware/InternalServerError.java
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,40 +0,0 @@
-/*
- * Copyright (C) 2019 The Android Open Source Project
- *
- * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
- * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
- * You may obtain a copy of the License at
- *
- *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
- *
- * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
- * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
- * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
- * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
- * limitations under the License.
- */
-
-package com.android.server.soundtrigger_middleware;
-
-import android.annotation.NonNull;
-
-/**
- * An internal server error.
- * <p>
- * This exception wraps any exception thrown from a service implementation, which is a result of a
- * bug in the server implementation (or any of its dependencies).
- * <p>
- * Specifically, this type is excluded from the set of whitelisted exceptions that binder would
- * tunnel to the client process, since these exceptions are ambiguous regarding whether the client
- * had done something wrong or the server is buggy. For example, a client getting an
- * IllegalArgumentException cannot easily determine whether they had provided illegal arguments to
- * the method they were calling, or whether the method implementation provided illegal arguments to
- * some method it was calling due to a bug.
- *
- * @hide
- */
-public class InternalServerError extends RuntimeException {
-    public InternalServerError(@NonNull Throwable cause) {
-        super(cause);
-    }
-}
diff --git a/services/core/java/com/android/server/soundtrigger_middleware/SoundTriggerMiddlewareValidation.java b/services/core/java/com/android/server/soundtrigger_middleware/SoundTriggerMiddlewareValidation.java
index bae244179346f..ec394a224cd78 100644
--- a/services/core/java/com/android/server/soundtrigger_middleware/SoundTriggerMiddlewareValidation.java
+++ b/services/core/java/com/android/server/soundtrigger_middleware/SoundTriggerMiddlewareValidation.java
@@ -96,12 +96,12 @@ import java.util.Set;
  * {@link NullPointerException} or {@link
  * IllegalStateException}, respectively. All those exceptions are treated specially by Binder and
  * will get sent back to the client.<br>
- * Once this is done, any subsequent fault is considered a server fault. Only {@link
- * RecoverableException}s thrown by the implementation are special-cased: they would get sent back
- * to the caller as a {@link ServiceSpecificException}, which is the behavior of Binder. Any other
- * exception gets wrapped with a {@link InternalServerError}, which is specifically chosen as a type
- * that <b>does NOT</b> get forwarded by binder. Those exceptions would be handled by a high-level
- * exception handler on the server side, typically resulting in rebooting the server.
+ * Once this is done, any subsequent fault is considered either a recoverable (expected) or
+ * unexpected server fault. Those will be delivered to the client as a
+ * {@link ServiceSpecificException}. {@link RecoverableException}s thrown by the implementation are
+ * considered recoverable and will include a specific error code to indicate the problem. Any other
+ * exceptions will use the INTERNAL_ERROR code. They may also cause the module to become invalid
+ * asynchronously, and the client would be notified via the moduleDied() callback.
  *
  * {@hide}
  */
@@ -159,7 +159,7 @@ public class SoundTriggerMiddlewareValidation implements ISoundTriggerMiddleware
         }
 
         Log.wtf(TAG, "Unexpected exception", e);
-        throw new InternalServerError(e);
+        throw new ServiceSpecificException(Status.INTERNAL_ERROR, e.getMessage());
     }
 
     @Override
@@ -273,8 +273,7 @@ public class SoundTriggerMiddlewareValidation implements ISoundTriggerMiddleware
                 throw new ServiceSpecificException(Status.TEMPORARY_PERMISSION_DENIED,
                         String.format("Caller must have the %s permission.", permission));
             default:
-                throw new InternalServerError(
-                        new RuntimeException("Unexpected perimission check result."));
+                throw new RuntimeException("Unexpected perimission check result.");
         }
     }