tiangolo/fastapi · error · HTTPException

Inactive user

Error message

Inactive user

What it means

In the scopes tutorial, `get_current_active_user` (guarded by `Security(get_current_user, scopes=['me'])`) raises HTTP 400 'Inactive user' when the authenticated, scope-checked user has `disabled: True`. Sample user `alice` (`disabled: True`) triggers it once you have a token with the `me` scope.

Source

Thrown at docs_src/security/tutorial005_an_py310.py:147

        raise credentials_exception
    user = get_user(fake_users_db, username=token_data.username)
    if user is None:
        raise credentials_exception
    for scope in security_scopes.scopes:
        if scope not in token_data.scopes:
            raise HTTPException(
                status_code=status.HTTP_401_UNAUTHORIZED,
                detail="Not enough permissions",
                headers={"WWW-Authenticate": authenticate_value},
            )
    return user


async def get_current_active_user(
    current_user: Annotated[User, Security(get_current_user, scopes=["me"])],
):
    if current_user.disabled:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=400, detail="Inactive user")
    return current_user


@app.post("/token")
async def login_for_access_token(
    form_data: Annotated[OAuth2PasswordRequestForm, Depends()],
) -> Token:
    user = authenticate_user(fake_users_db, form_data.username, form_data.password)
    if not user:
        raise HTTPException(status_code=400, detail="Incorrect username or password")
    access_token_expires = timedelta(minutes=ACCESS_TOKEN_EXPIRE_MINUTES)
    access_token = create_access_token(
        data={"sub": user.username, "scope": " ".join(form_data.scopes)},
        expires_delta=access_token_expires,
    )
    return Token(access_token=access_token, token_type="bearer")

View on GitHub (pinned to 42a41db11f)

Solutions

1. Log in as an active user (`johndoe`).
2. Set the user's `disabled` field to `False`.
3. Tell the user the account is disabled; do not retry the same token.

Example fix

# before
# me-scoped token for disabled 'alice' => 400
# after
# me-scoped token for active 'johndoe' => 200

None

def is_inactive(resp) -> bool:
    return getattr(resp, 'status_code', None) == 400 and resp.json().get('detail') == 'Inactive user'

try:
    me = client.get('/users/me/', headers=auth_header(token))
    me.raise_for_status()
except httpx.HTTPStatusError as e:
    if e.response.status_code == 400 and e.response.json().get('detail') == 'Inactive user':
        prompt_reactivation()
    raise

When it happens

Trigger: `GET /users/me/` with a valid `me`-scoped JWT whose `sub` is a disabled user (e.g. `alice`).

Common situations: Disabled account still holding a valid scoped JWT; flag not reset after reactivation; identical pattern to the other tutorials but behind the scopes layer.

Related errors

• Inactive user
• Inactive user
• Inactive user
• Inactive user
• Inactive user

AI-assisted analysis of tiangolo/fastapi@42a41db11f (2026-08-04). Data as JSON: /data/errors/d3af55f814ec16a8.json. Report an issue: GitHub.