SonarSource/sonarqube · error · LdapException

Unable to retrieve details for user <username> in <serverKey

Error message

Unable to retrieve details for user <username> in <serverKey>

What it means

getUserDetails wraps any NamingException from the user detail search (findUnique) in this LdapException. It means the LDAP operation to fetch email/realName attributes for the user failed at the directory level. A user simply not found returns null instead — this error means an actual directory/protocol failure. The cause is attached and logged at debug.

Source

Thrown at server/sonar-auth-ldap/src/main/java/org/sonar/auth/ldap/DefaultLdapUsersProvider.java:89

      LOG.debug(errorMessage);
      throw new LdapException(errorMessage);
    }
    SearchResult searchResult;
    try {
      searchResult = ldapUserMapping.createSearch(contextFactories.get(serverKey), username)
        .returns(ldapUserMapping.getEmailAttribute(), ldapUserMapping.getRealNameAttribute())
        .findUnique();

      if (searchResult != null) {
        return mapUserDetails(ldapUserMapping, searchResult);
      } else {
        LOG.debug("User {} not found in {}", username, serverKey);
        return null;
      }
    } catch (NamingException e) {
      // just in case if Sonar silently swallowed exception
      LOG.debug(e.getMessage(), e);
      throw new LdapException("Unable to retrieve details for user " + username + " in " + serverKey, e);
    }
  }

  private static LdapUserDetails mapUserDetails(LdapUserMapping ldapUserMapping, SearchResult searchResult) throws NamingException {
    Attributes attributes = searchResult.getAttributes();
    LdapUserDetails details;
    details = new LdapUserDetails();
    details.setName(getAttributeValue(attributes.get(ldapUserMapping.getRealNameAttribute())));
    details.setEmail(getAttributeValue(attributes.get(ldapUserMapping.getEmailAttribute())));
    return details;
  }

}

View on GitHub (pinned to 184c821202)

Solutions

1. Enable debug logging to inspect the wrapped NamingException for the exact failure (CommunicationException, AuthenticationException, NameNotFoundException...).
2. Test connectivity and bind with ldapsearch -H <ldap.url> -D <bindDn> -w <password>.
3. Fix sonar.authenticator.ldap.url / user.baseDn configuration as indicated by the cause.
4. Check SSL certificate trust for ldaps:// endpoints.

Example fix

// before: unreachable server
sonar.authenticator.ldap.url: ldap://old-dc.example.com:389
// after: reachable controller
sonar.authenticator.ldap.url: ldap://dc1.example.com:389

try {
  details = provider.getUserDetails(username, serverKey);
} catch (LdapException e) {
  LOG.error("LDAP lookup failure for {} on {}: cause={}", username, serverKey, e.getCause(), e);
  throw e; // authentication should fail closed on directory outage
}

When it happens

Trigger: getUserDetails with a findUnique() search that throws NamingException — invalid bind credentials, wrong user.baseDn, connection refused to ldap.url, communication exception (timeout), or attribute-read ACL denial.

Common situations: Expired bind password; firewall/network changes blocking port 389/636; certificate trust failure on ldaps://; AD domain controller outage; baseDn pointing at a nonexistent OU.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Something went wrong' / 'Request failed (500)' / 'HTTP error! status: 404' — what failed HTTP requests actually mean and how to find the real cause — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

• Unable to retrieve groups for user %s in server with key <%s
• Unable to open LDAP connection
• Callback not supported
• Unable to retrieve details for user %s: No user or group map
• Unable to retrieve details for user %s and server key %s: No

AI-assisted analysis of SonarSource/sonarqube@184c821202 (2026-09-09). Data as JSON: /api/errors/89227d7cd825c71f. Report an issue: GitHub.