User Email Profile API returning 404 for CreatedBy/LastUpdatedBy Users retrieved from CQL Search API

[shwetagulati]

The observation is that in some Confluence Server instances

User Profile API (which is an API for internal use)
- {{BaseUrl}}/rest/mobile/1.0/profile/{username}

is returning 404 for usernames taken form Search API Resposne.

The node in response https://docs.atlassian.com/ConfluenceServer/rest/7.17.1/#content-search used is -

---

{

    "results": [

        {

            "id": "1907571",

            "type": "page",

            "status": "current",

            "title": "Benefits and Rewards",

            "history": {

                "latest": true,

                "createdBy": {

                    "type": "known",

                    "username": "admin",

                    "userKey": "8a8980847e2f0e5d017e2f1144b20000",

                    "profilePicture": {

                        "path": "/images/icons/profilepics/default.svg",

                        "width": 48,

                        "height": 48,

                        "isDefault": true

                    },

                    "displayName": "TenantAdmin",

                    "_links": {

                        "self": "http://confluenceserver.westus2.cloudapp.azure.com/rest/api/user?key=8a8980847e2f0e5d017e2f1144b20000"

                    },

                    "_expandable": {

                        "status": ""

                    }

                },

                "createdDate": "2022-01-12T12:36:31.544Z",

                "_links": {

                    "self": "http://confluencese.com/rest/api/content/1907571/history"

                },

                "_expandable": {

                    "lastUpdated": "",

                    "previousVersion": "",

                    "contributors": "",

                    "nextVersion": ""

                }

            },

            "extensions": {

                "position": "none"

            },

            "_links": {

                "webui": "/display/BR/Benefits+and+Rewards",

                "edit": "/pages/resumedraft.action?draftId=1907571",

                "tinyui": "/x/cxsd",

                "self": "http://confluen.com/rest/api/content/1907571"

            },

            "_expandable": {

                "container": "/rest/api/space/BR",

                "metadata": "",

                "operations": "",

                "children": "/rest/api/content/1907571/child",

                "restrictions": "/rest/api/content/1907571/restriction/byOperation",

                "ancestors": "",

                "body": "",

                "version": "",

                "descendants": "/rest/api/content/1907571/descendant",

                "space": "/rest/api/space/BR"

            }

        }

    ],

    "start": 0,

    "limit": 1,

    "size": 1,

    "cqlQuery": "space= BR",

    "searchDuration": 6,

    "totalSize": 5,

    "_links": {

        "self": "http://confluenc.com/rest/api/content/search?expand=history&cql=space=%20BR",

        "next": "/rest/api/content/search?expand=history&limit=1&start=1&cql=space=%20BR",

        "base": "http://confluenc.com",

        "context": ""

    }

}

Why would such a case happen? Is this expected?