What causes "error-invalid-user" in RocketChat/Rocket.Chat?

Log out and re-authenticate to obtain a fresh token for a valid user

RocketChat/Rocket.Chat · error · Error

error-invalid-user

Error message

error-invalid-user

What it means

Thrown by GET /api/v1/livechat/room.join when this.user is falsy. The route is authRequired, so an auth failure normally 401s earlier; reaching this throw means authentication succeeded (userId resolved) but the user document could not be loaded — a server-side inconsistency rather than a normal client mistake.

Solutions

Log out and re-authenticate to obtain a fresh token for a valid user
Verify the user still exists and is active (login works) on the same instance
If it reproduces for an existing user, inspect server logs and the users collection — treat as a data-integrity incident

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

const me = await (await fetch(`${url}/api/v1/me`, { headers: authHeaders })).json();
if (!me?._id || !me.username) { await reAuthenticate(); return; }

Type guard

function isAuthenticatedUser(u) {
  return Boolean(u) && typeof u._id === 'string';
}

Try / catch

try { await joinRoom(roomId); } catch (e) { if (e.message === 'error-invalid-user') { await reAuthenticate(); return joinRoom(roomId); } throw e; }

Prevention

Proactively refresh auth tokens whose user may have been deleted
Treat this error as a signal of server-side data drift — report it, do not loop retries
Drop cached credentials on repeated occurrences

When it happens

Trigger: Authenticated request whose user record is missing/unreadable at lookup time: user deleted between token validation and handler execution, partially-migrated user data, or an auth token referencing a stale user id.

Common situations: User deleted/deactivated while its token was still cached in a client; database restores or user-management sync jobs; very rare on healthy installs.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of RocketChat/Rocket.Chat@b2c16d5842 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b51c565914ca157c. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at apps/meteor/server/api/v1/omnichannel/room.ts:412

);

type LivechatAnalyticsEndpoints = ExtractRoutesFromAPI<typeof livechatVisitorDepartmentTransfer>;
declare module '@rocket.chat/rest-typings' {
	// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/naming-convention, @typescript-eslint/no-empty-interface
	interface Endpoints extends LivechatAnalyticsEndpoints {}
}

API.v1.addRoute(
	'livechat/room.join',
	{ authRequired: true, permissionsRequired: ['view-l-room'], validateParams: isLiveChatRoomJoinProps },
	{
		async get() {
			const { roomId } = this.queryParams;

			const { user } = this;

			if (!user) {
				throw new Error('error-invalid-user');
			}

			const room = await LivechatRooms.findOneById(roomId);

			if (!room) {
				throw new Error('error-invalid-room');
			}

			if (!room.open) {
				throw new Error('room-closed');
			}

			if (!(await Omnichannel.isWithinMACLimit(room))) {
				throw new Error('error-mac-limit-reached');
			}

			if (!(await canAccessRoomAsync(room, user))) {
				throw new Error('error-not-allowed');

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