apereo/cas · warning

Requested attribute [ ] could not be found in the query…

Error message

Requested attribute [{}] could not be found in the query results

What it means

This WARN is logged by AbstractJdbcUsernamePasswordAuthenticationHandler.collectPrincipalAttributes when an attribute name listed in the SQL query's attribute-mapping configuration is absent from the query result row. CAS iterates the expected attribute names, and any name with no corresponding column/value in the ResultSet is reported and simply skipped - the returned principal just lacks that attribute. It signals a mismatch between configured attribute mappings and what the SQL query actually returns.

Solutions

1. Align the sql SELECT clause with the configured attributeMappings so every mapped attribute (and its source key) is actually returned by the query
2. Fix typos or case mismatches between attributeMappings keys and result-set column names/aliases
3. If the attribute is legitimately optional per user, ignore the warning or coalesce the column in SQL (e.g. COALESCE(col, ''))
4. Verify the principal's row exists and is not missing joined data for the specific user

Example fix

// before
sql=SELECT username, email FROM users WHERE username=?
attributeMappings.email=mail
attributeMappings.displayName=displayName
// after
sql=SELECT username, email, display_name FROM users WHERE username=?
attributeMappings.email=mail
attributeMappings.displayName=displayName

Set<String> selectAliases = extractSelectAliases(properties.getSql());
for (String attr : properties.getAttributeMappings().keySet()) {
    if (!selectAliases.contains(attr)) throw new IllegalStateException("attributeMappings key not in SELECT: " + attr);
}

When it happens

Trigger: Configuring cas.authn.jdbc.query[].attributeMappings whose keys/values reference columns not selected by the configured sql statement; virtual attribute remapping (names) pointing at a source attribute that the query did not return; renaming a DB column without updating attributeMappings; sql returning a single-row result missing expected fields due to NULL or join misses.

Common situations: Typo in attributeMappings vs actual SELECT column aliases; DBA added a column but forgot to add it to the SQL; empty/NULL result columns for some users; migrating from another authn handler whose attribute names differed.

Understand the failure class

Background: EmptyResultError / "no results found": when an API or scraper succeeds but returns zero rows — this error's family across 9 libraries.

Related errors

• [e.getMessage()]
• Password does not match value on record.
• Password does not match value on record.
• Password has expired
• [username] not found with SQL query.

AI-assisted analysis of apereo/cas@e7288fc434 (2026-09-08). Data as JSON: /api/errors/59f1b0577a678b66. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at support/cas-server-support-jdbc-authentication/src/main/java/org/apereo/cas/jdbc/AbstractJdbcUsernamePasswordAuthenticationHandler.java:58

        this.dataSource = dataSource;
        this.jdbcTemplate = new JdbcTemplate(dataSource);
        this.namedParameterJdbcTemplate = new NamedParameterJdbcTemplate(jdbcTemplate);
    }

    protected Map<String, List<Object>> collectPrincipalAttributes(final Map<String, Object> dbFields) {
        val attributes = new HashMap<String, List<Object>>();
        val principalAttributeMap = CoreAuthenticationUtils.transformPrincipalAttributesListIntoMultiMap(properties.getPrincipalAttributeList());
        principalAttributeMap.forEach((key, names) -> {
            val attribute = dbFields.get(key);
            if (attribute != null) {
                LOGGER.debug("Found attribute [{}] from the query results", key);
                val attributeNames = CollectionUtils.toCollection(names);
                attributeNames.forEach(attrName -> {
                    LOGGER.debug("Principal attribute [{}] is virtually remapped/renamed to [{}]", key, attrName);
                    attributes.put(attrName.toString(), CollectionUtils.wrap(attribute.toString()));
                });
            } else {
                LOGGER.warn("Requested attribute [{}] could not be found in the query results", key);
            }
        });
        return attributes;
    }
}

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