Stash fails to add branch permissions for users who have not yet been licensed to use the system. Instead, it simply says that xxx is not a licensed user (see screen shot).

We have Stash set up to use LDAP, and many project leads will log in, create projects, and set permissions before their team members have been given permission to use Stash. The team leads then have to wait for the users to log in before they can set branch permissions, which slows people down. It makes sense for team leads to be able to add permissions for anyone in LDAP, even if they haven't logged into Stash yet.

Also, inconsistently, you can add a permission for an unlicensed user at the repository level and the project level. It's just branch permissions that fail this way.