RocketChat/Rocket.Chat · error · Meteor.Error

error-invalid-user

error-invalid-user

Error message

The optional "userId" param provided does not match any users

What it means

Thrown by POST users.setPreferences when the resolved target userId matches no user document. After the permission check, the endpoint does a Users.findOneById on the passed userId (or the caller's own id) and requires a hit before saving preferences.

Solutions

1. Verify the id first with GET users.info?userId=... — if that 404s/fails, fix the reference
2. For self-edits, omit userId so the server uses the authenticated id
3. Refresh your user cache when this fires rather than retrying the same id

Example fix

// before
await sdk.post('users.setPreferences', { userId, data }); // userId from stale cache
// after
const info = await sdk.get('users.info', { userId });
if (!info.user) throw new Error('unknown target user');
await sdk.post('users.setPreferences', { userId, data });

if (targetUserId) {
  const { users } = await sdk.get('users.list', {}).catch(() => ({ users: [] }));
  if (targetUserId !== myUserId && !users.some((u) => u._id === targetUserId)) throw new Error('target user does not exist');
}

catch (e) { if (e?.error === 'error-invalid-user') refreshUserReferences(); else throw e; }

When it happens

Trigger: POST with {userId: 'nonExistentOrDeletedId', ...}; userId with a stray space or wrong casing/copy-paste artifact; the caller's own account deleted between token issuance and the call (token still resolves to a dead user id).

Common situations: Stale user references in client state after account deletion; tools importing user lists where an id column is off by one character; race with account deletion during an active session.

Understand the failure class

Background: "User not found", "Invalid user", and "does not exist": what missing-user lookup errors mean across Rocket.Chat, LiteLLM, Phabricator, rustfs, and pnpm — this error's family across 10 libraries.

Related errors

• error-action-not-allowed
• error-invalid-query
• error-user-param-not-provided
• Emoji not found.
• error-bio-size-exceeded

AI-assisted analysis of RocketChat/Rocket.Chat@e4b8178b20 (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5bf8135809165cb4. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at apps/meteor/server/api/v1/users.ts:250

			authRequired: true,
			body: isUsersSetPreferencesParamsPOST,
			response: {
				200: userObjectResponse,
				400: validateBadRequestErrorResponse,
				401: validateUnauthorizedErrorResponse,
			},
		},
		async function action() {
			if (
				this.bodyParams.userId &&
				this.bodyParams.userId !== this.userId &&
				!(await hasPermissionAsync(this.user, 'edit-other-user-info'))
			) {
				throw new Meteor.Error('error-action-not-allowed', 'Editing user is not allowed');
			}
			const userId = this.bodyParams.userId ? this.bodyParams.userId : this.userId;
			if (!(await Users.findOneById(userId))) {
				throw new Meteor.Error('error-invalid-user', 'The optional "userId" param provided does not match any users');
			}

			const { statusVisibilityDenied: _ownBlockList, ...preferences } = this.bodyParams.data;

			await saveUserPreferences(userId === this.userId ? this.bodyParams.data : preferences, userId);
			const user = await Users.findOneById(userId, {
				projection: {
					'settings.preferences': 1,
					'language': 1,
				},
			});

			if (!user) {
				return API.v1.failure('User not found');
			}

			const { statusVisibilityDenied, ...savedPreferences } = user.settings?.preferences ?? {};

View on GitHub (pinned to e4b8178b20)