Redmine API claims missing 'hours' field and returns 422 on POST to time_entry.json

Question

I am trying to create time entries in a Redmine 3.3.0.stable installation via the REST API, using the Requests library in the client software. I am using the following code:

    urlSuffix='/time_entries.json'

    time_entry = {
        'hours':       0.25,
        'project_id':  1,
        'comments':    'test',
        'activity_id': 1,
    }

    params = {
        'key': session.APIKey,
    }

    headers = {
        'Content-Type': 'application/xml',
    }

    requestURL = "%s%s" % (session.redmineBaseUrl, urlSuffix)
    response = requests.post(requestURL, json=time_entry, params=params)

response.status_code is always 422, and the response contains the following localized message:

{"errors":["Stunden muss ausgefüllt werden"]}

which translates to

hours must be provided

However, the field 'hours' was given correctly, as you can see. Furthermore, the log file indicates that the parameter reaches Redmine correctly:

Started POST "/PROJECTNAMEHERE/time_entries.json?key=APIKEYHERE" for 62.178.175.81 at 2016-11-15 00:19:47 +0100
Processing by TimelogController#create as JSON
  Parameters: {"project_id"=>"1", "spent_on"=>"2016-11-15T00:19:24.513001", "comments"=>"lkj", "activity_id"=>"1", "hours"=>0.25, "key"=>"a009fdb7d15f174b31860cfa9d56fd648737d862"}
  Current user: MichaelJaros (id=5)
  Rendered common/error_messages.api.rsb (0.2ms)
Completed 422 Unprocessable Entity in 22ms (Views: 0.7ms | ActiveRecord: 5.1ms)

I have tried with the same outcome:

all combinations of localized decimal point (, instead of .)
passing the hours as an integer, float or string
switching to XML as suggested by this similar issue found in the Redmine boards (this makes Redmine complain about missing and invalid project id as well)
using the data= parameter instead of json= in the post() method (this makes the hours value a string like "1.0" instead of 1.0 in the log file)

My last resort would be trying one of the Python Redmine libraries, but I can't see what they should do different in this case.

Am I doing anything wrong?
What exactly do they mean by:

time_entry (required): a hash of the time entry attributes, including: [...]

in the time entries documentation? When the request is in XML format, I would expect the API to require XML data for the time_entry as well, not "a hash". But maybe that part was just written inaccurately?

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 15 '16 at 09:43

I did a pip install python-redmine and the following code works perfectly:

from redmine import Redmine
redmine = Redmine (redmineBaseUrl, version='3.3.0', key=APIKey)
[...]
redmine.time_entry.create(project_id=self.projectId, activity_id=self.activityId, hours=self.getHoursRounded(), spent_on=self.startDateTime.date(), comments=self.comment)

I should have done it this way before messing around with this for hours yesterday.

Marlon Schlosshauer · Answer 2 · 2020-09-22T12:25:43.823

Had the same problem. Wrapping the time entry with a time_entry tag resolved the issue for me.

From:

   time_entry = {
        'hours':       0.25,
        'project_id':  1,
        'comments':    'test',
        'activity_id': 1,
    }

To:

   time_entry = {
        'time_entry': {
             'hours':       0.25,
             'project_id':  1,
             'comments':    'test',
             'activity_id': 1,
        }
    }

Redmine API claims missing 'hours' field and returns 422 on POST to time_entry.json

2 Answers2