# API not returning suspended fields properly
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/api-not-returning-suspended-fields-properly/71850
**Category:** Bug
**Created:** [October 11, 2017, 3:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/api-not-returning-suspended-fields-properly/71850 "2017-10-11T15:30:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Geoffrey\_Challen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Geoffrey_Challen)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2017, 3:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/api-not-returning-suspended-fields-properly/71850/1 "2017-10-11T15:30:09Z")
In the past the API returned a user object with `suspended: true` (or some non-null value) when a user was suspended. A recent change seems to break that behavior. Now, `suspended_at` can be non-null while `suspended` is null.
Here is an example snippet returned by the API:
```json
"title": null,
"suspended_at": "2017-10-11T15:11:26.936Z",
"suspended_till": null,
"suspended": null,
"blocked": false,
```
This seems like a recent regression, since scripts that I wrote in August that relied on this behavior only recently stopped working properly. I’m on 1.9.0.beta12.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 1:08am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/api-not-returning-suspended-fields-properly/71850/2 "2017-10-12T01:08:23Z")
Unlikely to be a regression, the api changed as @eviltrout changed it.
---
### Author:  [@Geoffrey\_Challen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Geoffrey_Challen)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 1:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/api-not-returning-suspended-fields-properly/71850/3 "2017-10-12T13:59:59Z")
OK. What’s the new correct way to interpret these fields? It’s seems counterintuitive for `suspended_at` to be set while `suspended` is `null`.
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### Author:  [@eviltrout](https://meta.discourse.org/u/eviltrout)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 8:27pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/api-not-returning-suspended-fields-properly/71850/4 "2017-10-12T20:27:59Z")
Can you be more specific about which API you’re using to get this information?
Also do you have steps to reproduce this? Looking at the `unsuspend` method, it should be clearing out `suspended_at`.
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### Author:  [@Geoffrey\_Challen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Geoffrey_Challen)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2017, 12:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/api-not-returning-suspended-fields-properly/71850/5 "2017-10-13T12:10:43Z")
I’m grabbing the users from `admin/users/list/active.json`. I can provide more of the script if you’d like, but it uses that list to determine if there are users that should be suspended. (I’m using this for a class, so as students drop we suspend them indefinitely so that they can’t continue using the forum.) I use `admin/users//suspend` to suspend these users.
Back in August when I first wrote this, a check for `user.suspended == null` on the list of active users was sufficient to determine if a user was suspended. But then I noticed that some users were being repeatedly suspended, and realized that `suspended` was not being set to a non-null value as reported above.
Note that `unsuspend` probably has nothing to do with what I’m seeing—I never unsuspend users, since students don’t typically come back when they drop. (This did happen once, but I handled it manually.) The problem could be in the `suspend` method.
---
### Author:  [@eviltrout](https://meta.discourse.org/u/eviltrout)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2017, 4:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/api-not-returning-suspended-fields-properly/71850/6 "2017-10-13T16:19:54Z")
I reviewed the code and it turns out `suspended?` is simply defined as `suspended_till && suspended_till > DateTime.now`.
A user could be returned as not `suspended` if the period of time simply expired. `suspnded_at` in that case would still have a value because they _were_ suspended then. I don’t think this is strictly a bug, as `suspended` would still be correct.
I did make two changes to make the API less confusing though:
1. `suspended` will always be `true` or `false`, you don’t have to worry about `null` anymore.
2. `suspended_at` and `suspended_till` will not be returned unless `suspended` is true. This shrinks our JSON payload which is nice.
>
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2017, 7:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/api-not-returning-suspended-fields-properly/71850/7 "2017-10-13T19:41:08Z")