title: What are the causes of a "operation performed with inactive user" error when *creating* a Salesforce object?
body: <p>Using C# and the Salesforce API, I can successfully <code>update</code> records, and I can <code>create</code> in certain tables.  However, when I attempt to add an Account object, the <code>create</code> method reports failure, with the error INACTIVE_OWNER_OR_USER, message "operation performed with inactive user".  What might this error indicate?</p>
  
  <p>The only user that I see involved is the account I'm using to authenticate, which is certainly active, at least I can log in with it and update records.  It appears to have full rights.</p>
  
  <p>My understanding is that one should not explicitly specify the owner for an object, as Salesforce will set that automatically, so I'm leaving the <code>Owner</code> and <code>OwnerId</code> fields null in the passed object.  I get the same error if I do explicitly set <code>OwnerId</code>, anyway.</p>
  
  <p>I've gone over the docs (<a href="http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api/Content/sforce_api_calls_create.htm" rel="nofollow">create</a>, <a href="http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api/Content/sforce_api_objects_account.htm#topic-title" rel="nofollow">accounts</a>), but they offer little troubleshooting advice.  Google offers very little on this error message in relation to inserts, though it's clearly an issue for updates.  Can anyone tell me what I'm missing?</p>
  
  <p>I'm using our corporate Enterprise WSDL, API v24.0.  I could share code, but I'm not sure it would help, as it's virtually identical to working <code>update</code> code, it's just a different method called in the end.</p>