# /users/by-external/ not working

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/users-by-external-not-working/57401>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [February 15, 2017, 4:09am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/users-by-external-not-working/57401 "2017-02-15T04:09:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

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**Author:** ![simon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/simon/32/339122_2.png) [@simon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/simon)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2017, 5:38am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/users-by-external-not-working/57401/5 "2017-02-15T05:38:08Z")

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The `external_id` for a user doesn’t exist on Discourse until you send it with the SSO parameters from the site that is acting as the SSO provider. This site doesn’t use SSO, so it won’t work here.

Once a user has an `external_id` you can get the user by making a `GET` request to `example.com/users/by-external/:external_id.json`.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/users-by-external-not-working/57401)._