Authentication Error when trying to create new playlist on my own account

spiritkhakis — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 03:12:12 GMT

Plan

Premium

Country: USA

Device

(Macbook Pro 1st Gen M1)

Operating System

(MacOS Ventura 13.0.1)

My Question or Issue

I am trying to write a python script that just scrapes other users' playlists and adds songs in them to my own playlist. When running the following script:

import spotipy from spotipy.oauth2 import SpotifyClientCredentials # Set your Spotify API credentials client_id = "my_client_id" client_secret = "my_client_secret" scopes = ["user-playlist-create", "user-playlist-modify"] # Authenticate with the Spotify API client_credentials_manager = SpotifyClientCredentials(client_id=client_id, client_secret=client_secret) sp = spotipy.Spotify(client_credentials_manager=client_credentials_manager) # Define the name and description of your playlist playlist_name = "new_playlist" playlist_description = "a new playlist built from other users' playlists" # Create the playlist on your Spotify account playlist = sp.user_playlist_create(user="spiritkhakis", name=playlist_name, description=playlist_description) playlist_id = playlist["id"] # Add songs from other users' playlists to your playlist songs = [] for user in ["user1", "user2", "user3"]: playlists = sp.user_playlists(user=user) for playlist in playlists["items"]: if playlist["name"] == "Your Top Songs 2022": playlist_tracks = sp.playlist_tracks(playlist_id=playlist["id"]) for track in playlist_tracks["items"]: songs.append(track["track"]["id"]) # Add the songs to your playlist sp.user_playlist_add_tracks(user="spiritkhakis", playlist_id=playlist_id, tracks=songs) # Print a message to confirm that the playlist has been created print(f"Successfully created playlist: {playlist_name}") # Print a message to confirm that the playlist has been created print(f"Successfully created playlist: {playlist_name}")

I receive the following error message:

Couldn't read cache at: .cache Couldn't write token to cache at: .cache HTTP Error for POST to https://api.spotify.com/v1/users/spiritkhakis/playlists with Params: {} returned 403 due to This request requires user authentication. Traceback (most recent call last): File "/Users/grayson/master/lib/python3.9/site-packages/spotipy/client.py", line 245, in _internal_call response.raise_for_status() File "/Users/grayson/master/lib/python3.9/site-packages/requests/models.py", line 1021, in raise_for_status raise HTTPError(http_error_msg, response=self) requests.exceptions.HTTPError: 403 Client Error: Forbidden for url: https://api.spotify.com/v1/users/spiritkhakis/playlists During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/Users/grayson/master/playlist.py", line 18, in <module> playlist = sp.user_playlist_create(user="spiritkhakis", name=playlist_name, description=playlist_description) File "/Users/grayson/master/lib/python3.9/site-packages/spotipy/client.py", line 792, in user_playlist_create return self._post("users/%s/playlists" % (user,), payload=data) File "/Users/grayson/master/lib/python3.9/site-packages/spotipy/client.py", line 302, in _post return self._internal_call("POST", url, payload, kwargs) File "/Users/grayson/master/lib/python3.9/site-packages/spotipy/client.py", line 267, in _internal_call raise SpotifyException( spotipy.exceptions.SpotifyException: http status: 403, code:-1 - https://api.spotify.com/v1/users/spiritkhakis/playlists: This request requires user authentication., reason: None

Not sure what is causing this, since I'm pretty sure I have authenticated the user in question (spiritkhakis is my own account, and the account with which I have registered the app). I saw one forum post saying I needed to navigate specifically to an "Authenticate a New User" option under the "Dashboard" tab on the Spotify Developer website, but when I navigate to my dashboard, there is no such option.

All help is appreciated. Thanks!

Re: Authentication Error when trying to create new playlist on my own account

Ximzend — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 08:13:18 GMT

If you want to use user_playlist_create(), you can't use Client Credentials. You can read this at the bottom of the error message: "This request requires user authentication.". You can read here how to use User Authentication inside your script. You need to use the Scopes: playlist-read-private, playlist-read-collaborative, playlist-modify-private, playlist-modify-public.

At the top, there's an error message saying "Couldn't write token to cache at: .cache". Maybe it has something to do with the other message, or you are running your script from somewhere Python doesn't have read/write access.

Re: Authentication Error when trying to create new playlist on my own account

tmmls1977 — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 11:43:58 GMT

Can all other authentications be used when creating playlists?

Re: Authentication Error when trying to create new playlist on my own account

Ximzend — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 12:07:28 GMT

Hi @tmmls1977

You can use the Authorization Code flow, with or without PKCE. The Implicit grant is deprecated.

topic Re: Authentication Error when trying to create new playlist on my own account in Spotify for Developers

Authentication Error when trying to create new playlist on my own account

Re: Authentication Error when trying to create new playlist on my own account

Re: Authentication Error when trying to create new playlist on my own account

Re: Authentication Error when trying to create new playlist on my own account