topic Re: Does the public user API endpoint now require user authentication? in Spotify for Developers

Does the public user API endpoint now require user authentication?

natalix — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 20:14:48 GMT

I am currently building a server-side application using the Spotify API. Since I don't want to interact with any private user resources, I use client credentials for authentication.

While this works for all the music data endpoints, I am having issues with fetching an user's public profile with the (/v1/users/smedjan) endpoint.

The API returns the following error:

{"error": {"status": 401, "message": "Valid user authentication required" } }

Do I need to have a Spotify user logged in using the Authorization code flow for fetching public user data?

Fetching a user's public playlists (/v1/users/smedjan/playlists) works without any issues.

What is strange is that fetching a user profile without user auth had worked before (I tested it a few days ago) and the API docs don't show any authorization scopes for the endpoint.

I would like to know if there have been any changes on Spotify's side regarding that API endpoint.

Re: Does the public user API endpoint now require user authentication?

this_is_ridiculous — Sat, 19 Oct 2024 17:12:52 GMT

I have a web app I've been using for over a year that has been calling that API with client credentials to get a user's profile picture and display name. On the afternoon of 10/17 it started flaking out, where it would once in a while fail to return a user profile. Then the morning of 10/18 it started failing every time. I wonder if Spotify is just having some issues right now with that API endpoint and hopefully they are working on a fix.

Re: Does the public user API endpoint now require user authentication?

this_is_ridiculous — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 14:56:47 GMT

Looks like the users endpoint is behaving normally again today for me. I am able to get responses with client auth now. I guess they fixed the issue.