nextcloud/server · error · InvalidArgumentException

User <$user> is unknown.

Error message

User <$user> is unknown.

What it means

Thrown by occ dav:list-calendars when the required uid argument does not match an existing user (IUserManager::userExists() false). The guard runs before getCalendarsForUser(), so no CalDav queries happen. Note the command explicitly skips the birthday calendar (BirthdayService::BIRTHDAY_CALENDAR_URI) when listing, but that is unrelated to this error.

Source

Thrown at apps/dav/lib/Command/ListCalendars.php:41

	) {
		parent::__construct();
	}

	#[\Override]
	protected function configure(): void {
		$this
			->setName('dav:list-calendars')
			->setDescription('List all calendars of a user')
			->addArgument('uid',
				InputArgument::REQUIRED,
				'User for whom all calendars will be listed');
	}

	#[\Override]
	protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output): int {
		$user = $input->getArgument('uid');
		if (!$this->userManager->userExists($user)) {
			throw new \InvalidArgumentException("User <$user> is unknown.");
		}

		$calendars = $this->caldav->getCalendarsForUser("principals/users/$user");

		$calendarTableData = [];
		foreach ($calendars as $calendar) {
			// skip birthday calendar
			if ($calendar['uri'] === BirthdayService::BIRTHDAY_CALENDAR_URI) {
				continue;
			}

			$readOnly = false;
			$readOnlyIndex = '{' . \OCA\DAV\DAV\Sharing\Plugin::NS_OWNCLOUD . '}read-only';
			if (isset($calendar[$readOnlyIndex])) {
				$readOnly = $calendar[$readOnlyIndex];
			}

			$calendarTableData[] = [

View on GitHub (pinned to ecdeb153ff)

Solutions

1. Check the exact id via `occ user:list` or `occ user:info <uid>`
2. Fix typos / re-run with the correct uid
3. If the user should come from LDAP, verify the backend is connected and synced

#!/usr/bin/env bash
uid="$1"
occ user:info "$uid" >/dev/null 2>&1 || { echo "Unknown user: $uid" >&2; exit 1; }
occ dav:list-calendars "$uid"

When it happens

Trigger: `occ dav:list-calendars <uid>` with a typo'd or deleted uid, or a user that only exists in an offline external backend.

Common situations: Admin scripts with hardcoded user lists drifting from reality; user deleted between operations; wrong environment (staging vs production); LDAP outage.

Related errors

• User $user is unknown
• User $user is unknown
• User <$userOrigin> is unknown.
• User <$userDestination> is unknown.
• User <$user> in unknown.

AI-assisted analysis of nextcloud/server@ecdeb153ff (2026-08-17). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1093b66e2e4bdb58. Report an issue: GitHub.