amark/gun · error

User cannot be found!

Error message

User cannot be found!

What it means

This is the default error text in user.auth's act.err handler: when auth fails without a specific message (e === undefined), Gun logs 'User cannot be found!' and invokes the callback with { err }. It typically appears when the plugin/user lookup produced no name — e.g. act.plugin is called without a truthy name — or another internal auth failure path calls act.err() with no argument.

Source

Thrown at sea/auth.js:135

        act.w(JSON.stringify({ek: auth, s: act.salt}));
      }
      act.w = function(auth){
        if(opt.shuffle){ // delete in future!
          console.log('migrate core account from UTF8 & shuffle');
          var tmp = {}; Object.keys(act.data).forEach(function(k){ tmp[k] = act.data[k] });
          delete tmp._;
          tmp.auth = auth;
          root.get('~'+act.pair.pub).put(tmp);
        } // end delete
        root.get('~'+act.pair.pub).get('auth').put(auth, cb || noop);
      }
      act.err = function(e){
        var ack = {err: Gun.log(e || 'User cannot be found!')};
        cat.ing = false;
        (cb || noop)(ack);
      }
      act.plugin = function(name){
        if(!(act.name = name)){ return act.err() }
        var tmp = [name];
        if('~' !== name[0]){
          tmp[1] = '~'+name;
          tmp[2] = '~@'+name;
        }
        act.b(tmp);
      }
      if(pair){
        if(pair.priv && pair.epriv)
          act.g(pair);
        else
          root.get('~'+pair.pub).once(act.h);
      } else
      if(alias){
        root.get('~@'+alias).once(act.a);
      } else
      if(!alias && !pass){
        SEA.name(act.plugin);

View on GitHub (pinned to 552227599d)

Solutions

1. Ensure both alias and password are non-empty strings at the call site
2. Always supply the auth callback and read ack.err to see the real failure
3. Complete user.create before attempting auth, and check its ack
4. If using plugin-based auth, pass a truthy user/public key name

Example fix

// before — alias may be undefined
gun.user().auth(alias, pass);
// after
if (typeof alias !== 'string' || !alias || typeof pass !== 'string' || !pass) {
  throw new Error('alias and password are required');
}
gun.user().auth(alias, pass, ack => {
  if (ack.err) return console.error(ack.err);
});

if (typeof alias !== 'string' || !alias.trim()) {
  throw new Error('alias required for auth');
}
if (typeof pass !== 'string' || !pass) {
  throw new Error('password required for auth');
}

const isCred = (s) => typeof s === 'string' && s.length > 0;

gun.user().auth(alias, pass, ack => {
  if (ack && ack.err) {
    console.error('auth error:', ack.err); // includes 'User cannot be found!' fallback
    return;
  }
});

When it happens

Trigger: Calling user.auth with arguments so malformed that no alias/name could be derived (e.g. auth() with no alias, or a plugin path passing an empty/falsy name so act.plugin hits return act.err()); any auth failure where the specific error is undefined falls back to this message via Gun.log(e || 'User cannot be found!').

Common situations: Passing undefined alias/password variables (missing form fields, unawaited promise values); calling auth before user.create finished; custom plugin/integration code calling the internal act pipeline with a falsy name.

Related errors

• Your user account is not published for dApps to access, plea
• Wrong user or password.
• First argument must be a string, Buffer, ArrayBuffer, Array,
• Invalid first argument for type 'hex'.
• First argument must be Array containing ArrayBuffer or Uint8

AI-assisted analysis of amark/gun@552227599d (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/08bd1268ee5b62b9. Report an issue: GitHub.