Skip to content
Try For Free

How to fix the 'User exists already' Error

Problem

When running a User Sync, you receive an error message very similar to the one below:

  1. "ATTR_ID : 2cebde31-4a06-4d06-8793-580bd2093f9a : 12438 exists already"

Cause

This can happen when a user was deleted and later created again with the same name on the IdP side.
User Sync tries to create a new user again and this fails, because the old one is still existing in Jira, Confluence, Bamboo or Bitbucket.

Resolution

To get rid of the error, please perform the following steps:

  • Navigate to the User Sync configuration page, and click on "Edit" of the connector showing that error message

  • Click on the "Show Advanced Settings" button

  • In the Attribute Mappings section, temporarily change the primary attribute to Username (the default should always be <IdP-Type>_ID, i.e. azure_ID)

    image2020-8-19_16-24-24.png

  • Temporarily disable the "Scheduled Synchronization" to ensure no sync runs while applying the fix

    image2020-8-19_16-25-8.png

  • Save the configuration

  • Perform an "Update Single User" operation for each user that has the issue, one by one

    • as identifier, use the username in the format on your IdP, i.e. the full Azure username or the unique user-Id

      image2020-8-19_16-26-15.png

  • The existing users should now be updated with the new/ correct unique Id from the new user record on the IdP

  • Revert back the connector settings and switch back to the default <IdP-Type>_ID field as the primary attribute

  • Enable the "Scheduled Synchronization" again

  • Save the configuration


If the steps above don't solve the issue, please contact our support team and provide the following details/ files:

  1. At your User Sync page, click on the History link for the connector in the Actions column of the connector list

  2. Find the last sync with errors and click on Details

  3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click at Download results for all users

  4. Head over to our support portal, open a ticket and attach the file downloaded