user/search API returning empty list `[]`

Nitin Patel_22kwkk

Hi,

One of our customers Censia has integrated with us and we're trying to fetch all users in their Jira.

We use this endpoint https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/jira/platform/rest/v3/#api-rest-api-3-users-search-get to fetch the users, but it is returning empty list `[]`.

I have checked that the person trying to connect admin@censia.com is an admin in jira.

Can you help me find out why that might be happening?

Here's the curl request:

```
curl --location --request GET 'censia.atlassian.net/rest/api/3/user/search?username=&maxResults=1000' \
--header 'Authorization: <basic auth creds>'
```

Dario B

Hello @Nitin Patel ,

If I understand correctly you are trying to get all the users from your instance using REST API but this is returning empty array.

If this is correct, since the GET /rest/api/3/user/search method can also be called by anonymous users, there are chances that either the authentication failed:

This operation can be accessed anonymously.

Or that the account used to authenticate the call does not have browse users permission:

Permissions required: Browse users and groups global permission. Anonymous calls or calls by users without the required permission return empty search results.

However, I can also see a number of other things that does not seem correct in the provided Curl example:

1. The endpoint is missing http:// 
2. You are searching against usernames, but username and userKey have been removed in order to improve user privacy in accordance with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):
   •  Major changes to Jira Cloud REST APIs are coming to improve user privacy
   • Deprecation notice and migration guide for major changes to Jira Cloud REST APIs to improve user privac
3. Basic authentication with username and password has been replaced by basic authentication with email address and API Token, but from the example is not clear what you are using.

 

Therefore, can you kindly run the following curl command against your instance and paste the results in your reply removing the sensitive data like shown below?

curl -u <EMAIL-ADDRESS>:<API-TOKEN> -D- -X GET "https://<NAME>.atlassian.net/rest/api/3/user/search?query=&maxResults=1000"
 

HTTP/2 200 
server: AtlassianProxy/1.15.8.1
[...]
date: Fri, 10 Apr 2020 12:40:25 GMT
atl-traceid: 4e5300a61b1fd8ab
x-arequestid: 75d19ba1-eef9-490a-bfbc-6271f33c2b4f
[...]
 

[{"self":"https://<NAME>.atlassian.net/rest/api/3/user?accountId=5bacXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXbd","accountId":"5bacXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXbd","accountType":"atlassian","emailAddress":"aXXXXXXXXX@atlassian.com","avatarUrls":{"48x48":"https://avatar-management--avatars.us-west-2.prod.public.atl-paas.net/5bacXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXbd/dac690af-6307-4655-893c-691c5900a5fb/128?size=48&s=48","24x24":"https:.....
[...]

 

Finally, please notice that the endpoint you are using might not return all the results as mentioned in the documentation:

This operation takes the users in the range defined by startAt and maxResults, up to the thousandth user, and then returns only the users from that range that match the search string and property. This means the operation usually returns fewer users than specified in maxResults. To get all the users who match the search string and property, use Get all users and filter the records in your code.

 

Cheers,
Dario