API creating transaction results in error 422

[landon-lengyel]

Support guidelines

• I've read the support guidelines

I've found a bug and checked that ...

• ... the documentation does not mention anything about my problem
• ... there are no open or closed issues that are related to my problem
• ... it's definitely a Firefly III issue, not me

Description

When I attempt to create a transaction with the API, I am receiving an odd error. I cannot figure this out. It's likely something I'm doing incorrectly, but I believe I'm following the documentation properly.

Error:
{"jsonapi":{"version":"1.0"},"errors":[{"detail":"Need at least one transaction.","source":{"pointer":"\/transactions\/0\/description"},"status":"422"}]}

With debug enabled, I see:

firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Now in FireflyIII\Support\Request\ChecksLogin::authorize  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Request class has no acceptedRoles array  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Collect rules of TransactionStoreRequest  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Now in getTransactionsArray  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Now going to validateOneTransaction  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Now in validateOneTransaction  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Now in getTransactionsArray  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Added error: at_least_one_transaction.  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Now done with validateOneTransaction  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Now in getTransactionsArray  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Now going to validateOneTransaction  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Now in validateOneTransaction  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Now in getTransactionsArray  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Added error: at_least_one_transaction.  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Now done with validateOneTransaction  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Now in Handler::render()  
firefly_iii_core  | [2024-11-05 18:26:34] production.DEBUG: Return to parent to handle LaravelValidationException(422)  
firefly_iii_core  | 10.0.35.17 - - [05/Nov/2024:18:26:34 -0700] "POST /api/v1/transactions HTTP/1.1" 422 1064 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Freedesktop SDK 24.08 (Flatpak runtime); en-US) PowerShell/7.4.6"

Debug information

Debug information generated at 2024-11-05 16:35:13 for Firefly III version v6.1.21.

System information
Item	Value
Firefly III	6.1.21 / v2.1.0 / 24 (exp. 24)
PHP version	8.3.12 (64bits) / apache2handler / Linux x86_64
BCscale	12
Error reporting	Display: Off, reporting: ALL errors
Max upload	67108864 (64 MB)
Database drivers	*mysql*, pgsql, sqlite,
Docker build	#1131, base #91

Firefly III information
Item	Value
Timezone	America/Denver + America/Denver
App environment	production, debug: true
Layout	v1
Logging	debug, stack / (empty)
Cache driver	file
Default language and locale	en_US + equal
Trusted proxies
Login provider & user guard	eloquent / web
Login headers	N/A + N/A
Stateful domains
Last cron job	never (never)
Mailer	log

User-specific information
Item	Value
User	#1 of 1
User flags	🐷
Session start	2024-11-01 00:00:00
Session end	2024-11-30 23:59:59
View range	1M
User language	en_US
User locale	en_US
Locale(s) supported	en_US.utf8: ✅ en_US.UTF-8: ✅
User agent	Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:132.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/132.0

Expected behaviour

Transaction is created

Steps to reproduce

Send POST request with the following parameters:

API Endpoint: {{URL}}/api/v1/transactions
Body:

{
  "apply_rules": false,
  "transactions": [
    {
      "date": "2024-04-07T00:00:00",
      "description": "BackBlaze",
      "type": "withdrawal",
      "amount": "3.21",
      "destination_name": "Electronics",
      "source_name": "Checking Account"
    }
  ]
}

Header:

{
  "Authorization": "Bearer {{Key}}",
  "Accept": "application/vnd.api+json"
}

Additional info

No response

[JC5]

Sorry, I can't replicate this. Submitting the body from your issue works as expected.

curl --location 'https://firefly.sd.internal/api/v1/transactions' \
--header 'Accept: application/json' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer eyJ0eX...' \
--data '{
  "apply_rules": false,
  "transactions": [
    {
      "date": "2024-04-07T00:00:00",
      "description": "BackBlaze",
      "type": "withdrawal",
      "amount": "3.21",
      "destination_name": "Electronics",
      "source_name": "Checking Account"
    }
  ]
}'

[landon-lengyel]

Thank you for your quick response and trying it.

It looks like curl also works fine for me. I was trying to use PowerShell. I'm not sure what it could be doing to mangle it. Not an issue with Firefly by the looks of it.

If you leave this open I'll try to figure it out in case anyone else is using PowerShell, then close it.

[landon-lengyel]

Alright I did a packet capture and was able to find the issue. Both Invoke-RestMethod and Invoke-WebRequest do not include the header Content-Type:application/json by default, and the 422 error is caused by that.

As far as Firefly goes, it would be nice if the error was more accurately attributed to the headers, and didn't refer to the description.

Thanks again for looking at it with me!

[JC5]

But it does, I'm not sure you identified the problem correctly.

curl --location 'https://firefly.sd.internal/api/v1/transactions' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer eyJ...' \
--data '{
  "apply_rules": false,
  "transactions": [
    {
      "date": "2024-04-07T00:00:00+04:00",
      "description": "BackBlaze",
      "type": "withdrawal",
      "amount": "3.21",
      "destination_name": "Electronics",
      "source_name": "Checking Account"
    }
  ]
}'

Result:

415 Unsupported Media Type
{
    "message": "Content-Type header cannot be empty.",
    "exception": "BadHttpHeaderException"
}