diff --git a/src/pages/p_paper.php b/src/pages/p_paper.php
index dcef7149fe..64262254bf 100644
--- a/src/pages/p_paper.php
+++ b/src/pages/p_paper.php
@@ -490,10 +490,6 @@ static function go(Contact $user, Qrequest $qreq) {
         $pp->load_prow();
 
         // fix user
-        if ($qreq->is_post() && $qreq->valid_token()) {
-            $user->ensure_account_here();
-            // XXX escape unless update && can_start_paper???
-        }
         if ($pp->prow->paperId === 0
             && $user->privChair
             && !$pp->prow->submission_round()->time_register(true)) {
diff --git a/src/paperstatus.php b/src/paperstatus.php
index 3ba9e8dea0..0c4ff85626 100644
--- a/src/paperstatus.php
+++ b/src/paperstatus.php
@@ -752,7 +752,14 @@ function clear_conflict_values($bit) {
      * @return ?Contact */
     private function _make_user($au, $ctype) {
         $uu = $this->conf->user_by_email($au->email, USER_SLICE);
-        if (!$uu && $ctype >= CONFLICT_AUTHOR) {
+        if (!$uu
+            && $ctype >= CONFLICT_AUTHOR
+            && strcasecmp($au->email, $this->user->email) === 0) {
+            $this->user->ensure_account_here();
+            $uu = $this->conf->user_by_email($au->email, USER_SLICE);
+        }
+        if (!$uu
+            && $ctype >= CONFLICT_AUTHOR) {
             $j = $au->unparse_nea_json();
             $j["disablement"] = ($this->disable_users ? Contact::DISABLEMENT_USER : 0)
                 | Contact::DISABLEMENT_PLACEHOLDER;
@@ -829,6 +836,11 @@ private function has_conflict_diff() {
     }
 
     private function _check_contacts_last($pj) {
+        // if creating a paper, user has account here
+        if ($this->user->has_email()) {
+            $this->user->ensure_account_here();
+        }
+
         // if creating a paper, user becomes contact;
         // if user removes self from author list, user becomes contact
         if ($this->user->contactId > 0) {
diff --git a/test/t_cdb.php b/test/t_cdb.php
index 466352ef49..9047a57e39 100644
--- a/test/t_cdb.php
+++ b/test/t_cdb.php
@@ -698,4 +698,52 @@ function test_updatecontactdb_authors() {
         xassert_eqq($u->affiliation, "Nonsense University");
         xassert_eqq($u->disablement, Contact::DISABLEMENT_PLACEHOLDER);
     }
+
+    function test_cdb_user_new_paper() {
+        $u = $this->conf->fresh_cdb_user_by_email("newuser@_.com");
+        xassert(!$u);
+
+        $result = Dbl::qe($this->conf->contactdb(), "insert into ContactInfo set firstName='Te', lastName='Thamrongrattanarit', email='newuser@_.com', affiliation='Brandeis University', collaborators='Computational Linguistics Magazine', password=' $$2y$10$/URgqlFgQHpfE6mg4NzJhOZbg9Cc2cng58pA4cikzRD9F0qIuygnm'");
+        $u = $this->conf->fresh_cdb_user_by_email("newuser@_.com");
+        xassert(!!$u);
+        xassert(!$this->conf->fresh_user_by_email("newuser@_.com"));
+
+        $so = $this->conf->setting("sub_open");
+        $ss = $this->conf->setting("sub_sub");
+        $this->conf->save_setting("sub_open", 1);
+        $this->conf->save_refresh_setting("sub_sub", Conf::$now + 10);
+        $mu = Contact::$main_user;
+        Contact::$main_user = $u;
+        xassert(!$u->has_account_here());
+
+        $p = PaperInfo::make_new($u, null);
+        $ps = new PaperStatus($u);
+        $pid = $ps->save_paper_web(new Qrequest("POST", [
+            "title" => "A Systematic Study of Neural Discourse Models for Implicit Discourse Relation",
+            "has_authors" => 1,
+            "authors:1:name" => "Attapol T. Rutherford",
+            "authors:1:affiliation" => "Yelp",
+            "authors:1:email" => "newuser@_.com",
+            "authors:2:name" => "Vera Demberg",
+            "authors:2:affiliation" => "Saarland University",
+            "authors:2:email" => "vera@coli.uni-saarland.de",
+            "authors:3:name" => "Nianwen Xue",
+            "authors:3:affiliation" => "Brandeis University",
+            "authors:3:email" => "xuen@brandeis.edu",
+            "abstract" => "Inferring implicit discourse relations in natural language text is the most difficult subtask in discourse parsing. Many neural network models have been proposed to tackle this problem."
+        ]), $p, "update");
+        xassert_gt($pid, 0);
+        xassert($u->has_account_here());
+
+        $p1 = $this->conf->checked_paper_by_id($pid);
+        xassert($p1->has_author($u));
+        $u1 = $this->conf->fresh_user_by_email("newuser@_.com");
+        xassert(!$u1->is_dormant());
+        xassert_eqq($p1->conflict_type($u1), CONFLICT_CONTACTAUTHOR | CONFLICT_AUTHOR);
+        xassert(!empty($p1->conflict_type_list()));
+
+        $this->conf->save_setting("sub_open", $so);
+        $this->conf->save_refresh_setting("sub_sub", $ss);
+        Contact::$main_user = $mu;
+    }
 }