apache/answer · error

user not found

Error message

user not found

What it means

During question import, the service resolves the target user by email via userCommon.GetByEmail; if no user has that email it returns this error and the import aborts. The import format assigns questions to users by email address, so the users must pre-exist.

Source

Thrown at internal/service/importer/importer_service.go:86

func (ip *ImporterService) NewImporterFunc() plugin.ImporterFunc {
	return &ImporterFunc{importerService: ip}
}

func (ip *ImporterService) ImportQuestion(ctx context.Context, questionInfo plugin.QuestionImporterInfo) (err error) {
	req := &schema.QuestionAdd{}
	errFields := make([]*validator.FormErrorField, 0)
	// To limit rate, remove the following code from comment: Part 1/2
	// reject, rejectKey := ipc.rateLimitMiddleware.DuplicateRequestRejection(ctx, req)
	// if reject {
	// 	return
	// }
	userInfo, exist, err := ip.userCommon.GetByEmail(ctx, questionInfo.UserEmail)
	if err != nil {
		log.Errorf("error: %v", err)
		return err
	}
	if !exist {
		return fmt.Errorf("user not found")
	}

	// To limit rate, remove the following code from comment: Part 2/2
	// defer func() {
	// 	// If status is not 200 means that the bad request has been returned, so the record should be cleared
	// 	if ctx.Writer.Status() != http.StatusOK {
	// 		ipc.rateLimitMiddleware.DuplicateRequestClear(ctx, rejectKey)
	// 	}
	// }()
	req.UserID = userInfo.ID
	req.Title = questionInfo.Title
	req.Content = questionInfo.Content
	req.HTML = "<p>" + questionInfo.Content + "</p>"
	req.Tags = make([]*schema.TagItem, len(questionInfo.Tags))
	for i, tag := range questionInfo.Tags {
		req.Tags[i] = &schema.TagItem{
			SlugName:    tag,
			DisplayName: tag,

View on GitHub (pinned to 3b9f137061)

Solutions

1. Create the missing users (or register/import them) before running the question import.
2. Normalize emails in the import file (trim, lowercase) to match stored values.
3. Have the importer map unknown emails to a fallback/default user instead of failing.
4. Log which email failed so the operator can fix the data and retry.

Example fix

// before
if !exist {
    return fmt.Errorf("user not found")
}
// after
if !exist {
    return fmt.Errorf("user not found by email: %s", questionInfo.UserEmail)
}

email = strings.ToLower(strings.TrimSpace(questionInfo.UserEmail))
_, exist, err := userCommon.GetByEmail(ctx, email)
if err != nil {
    return err
}
if !exist {
    return fmt.Errorf("import aborted: no user with email %s; create users first", email)
}

func importerHasUser(email string, users []entity.User) bool {
    target := strings.ToLower(strings.TrimSpace(email))
    for _, u := range users {
        if strings.ToLower(u.Email) == target {
            return true
        }
    }
    return false
}

err := importerService.ImportQuestion(ctx, req)
if err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "user not found") {
        return http.StatusBadRequest, "create the referenced users before importing"
    }
    return http.StatusInternalServerError, err.Error()
}

When it happens

Trigger: ImportQuestion (reached via AddQuestion) with a questionInfo.UserEmail that matches no user row.

Common situations: Import files exported from another instance whose user emails differ; emails changed/case-mismatched since export; importing into a fresh site without creating the users first; trailing whitespace or casing differences in the CSV.

Understand the failure class

Background: Record Not Found Errors: "not found", RecordNotFound, and "was not found" — what they mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

• user not exist
• user not exist
• %s activity not exist
• badge not exist
• config not found by id: %d

AI-assisted analysis of apache/answer@3b9f137061 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/556428930e2cb339. Report an issue: GitHub.