# API import: 409 error with existing contacts

**URL:** <https://community.hubspot.com/t/api-import-409-error-with-existing-contacts/12005>\
**Category:** APIs & Integrations\
**Tags:** contacts\
**Created:** [February 23, 2018, 9:43am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/api-import-409-error-with-existing-contacts/12005 "2018-02-23T09:43:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![basklomp](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/basklomp/32/77566_2.png) [@basklomp](https://community.hubspot.com/u/basklomp)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 9:43am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/api-import-409-error-with-existing-contacts/12005/1 "2018-02-23T09:43:39Z")

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Hi,

Together with one of our partners, we set up an API integration to batch upload new contacts. Unfortunately we’ve been getting errors for all existing contacts. How can the existing contact be updated (by for instance logging the new interaction?

_Details of error message_  
The error & message that they’re seeing, is: error integrating with HubSpot. Message: Status code: 409 - {“status”:“error”,“message”:“Contact already exists”,“correlationId”:“3dd6ce62-a0a4-4a3c-8e9f-170d71bee51a”,“identityProfile”:{“vid”:6182263,“identity” …

We are using [http://convertrmedia.com/](http://convertrmedia.com/) for the sync.

Best,  
Bas

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![danaketh](https://d10pqhm3lwygmk.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/community.hubspot.com/danaketh/32/96815_2.png) [@danaketh](https://community.hubspot.com/u/danaketh)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 11:40am UTC](https://community.hubspot.com/t/api-import-409-error-with-existing-contacts/12005/2 "2018-02-23T11:40:55Z")

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You can update the contact by using the right endpoint. In your case, it might be easier to update contacts based on their e-mail address: [https://developers.hubspot.com/docs/methods/contacts/update\_contact-by-email](https://developers.hubspot.com/docs/methods/contacts/update_contact-by-email)

I’d probably implement this as a response to the error you get, so when a request to create new user is sent and the response is `409`, it will run the update. There is a way to check for the contact first but that adds on more request to the logic.