401 - Unauthorized in some requests

[Th3Liron]

Plan

Free/Premium

Country

Germany

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

Hello everyone,

I have a small issue again 🙂 When I make API requests to perform certain actions (such as adding songs to the queue, pausing/resuming playback, setting volume, or skipping songs).

(I'm using the Authorization Code flow.)

The way I generate the Code:
[URL] https://accounts.spotify.com/de/authorize?response_type=token&client_id=..&scope=user-read-currently...

The way I generate/refresh Tokens:

const requestBody = new URLSearchParams();
requestBody.append('grant_type', 'authorization_code');
requestBody.append('code', Code);
requestBody.append('redirect_uri', 'http://localhost');
requestBody.append('client_id', SpoClientID);
requestBody.append('client_secret', SpoClientSecret);

try {
const response = await axios.post(TOKENendpoint, requestBody, {
headers: {
'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
},
});


Refreshing Tokens:

axios.post(TOKENendpoint, null, {
params: {
grant_type: 'refresh_token',
refresh_token: `${SpotifyRefreshToken}`
},
headers: {
'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
Authorization: `Basic ${authString}`
},
})

I'm grateful for any help. Have a wonderful day and stay healthy 🙂

[Ximzend]

You need to add the user-modify-playback-state scope to control playback, as you can read on the respective documentation pages under Authorization scopes:

https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/add-to-queue

https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/start-a-users-playback

https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/set-volume-for-users-playback

https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/skip-users-playback-to-next-track

P.S. you need to have a Premium subscription to use most or all of the Player scopes.

[Th3Liron]

HUH I was sure I already answered.. sorry!
Yeah I know that and I did it, thats why Im so confused about getting error 401.

Thats the answer I get to the token request, there you can also see the scopes. (And I got Spotify Premium 🙂 )
{
access_token: 'BQAsNIZg1...6SYTiE',
token_type: 'Bearer',
expires_in: 3600,
scope: 'user-modify-playback-state user-read-playback-state user-read-currently-playing'
}

[Ximzend]

Okay. Error 401 means the token is expired. Have you tried getting a new one?

(I didn't see that scope in your posted URL, but never mind than.)

[Th3Liron]

Yeah, I automatically generate new tokens if the code starts or if the old one expires.

And the error says its invaild and not expired,

status: 401,
statusText: 'Unauthorized',
headers: Object [AxiosHeaders] {
'www-authenticate': 'Bearer realm="spotify", error="invalid_token", error_description="Invalid access token"',


Oh and yeah sorry, I shared the wrong link to you 🙈

Edit: Here the link I actually use: https://accounts.spotify.com/de/authorize?response_type=code&client_id=..&scope=user-read-currently-...

[Ximzend]

Then I don't know why it doesn't work for you.

[Th3Liron]

Thats sad haha Idk, if I test it in the dev docs (as Example set volume) it works..

[Th3Liron]

But the Code looks fine, right?

async function ManageVolume(channel, message, tags, token) {

    const args = message.split(' ');

    console.log('Volume:', args[1])

    const ManageVolumeEndpoint = `https://api.spotify.com/v1/me/player/volume?volume_percent=${args[1]}`;

    try {

        await axios.put(ManageVolumeEndpoint, {

            headers: {

                Authorization: `Bearer ${token}`

            }

        });

        client.say(channel, `@${tags.username} die Lautstärke wurde erfolgreich auf ${args[1]} gesetzt!`);

    } catch (error) {

        client.say(channel, `@${tags.username} die Lautstärke konnte nicht geändert werden!`);

        console.error('Fehler beim Ändern der Lautstärke:', error);

    }

}

[Ximzend · Accepted solution]

I recommend you to generate a new access token, and not a refreshed one.

[Th3Liron]

I ll try it later and let you know if it worked. Have a nice day and thank you for the help 🙂

[Th3Liron]

Got still the same problem... And still no Idea what Im doing wrong.. But if I try it at Dev Docs it still works...

{
access_token: 'BQCqpZMghX0mxPEDdC1smFDqfv...TDFQQW9s3nkpBE3qRrcQjqOUjcHv8qOn4QQUKUahEA-yINtVT5rYergy3P0T47GDDgNiP6NzwENUq6ZzxTSjlUxWgspXWEAMoJXWGI_V9GP0y4F8xvcD0nPpG0znlIoZuQ9M4ogCVe',
token_type: 'Bearer',
expires_in: 3600,
refresh_token: 'AQBhAjMzKyfEH3jWCXtXJu...L-_QJvUOURjyQmdMTrW-8UJ_VPmtJUouoRWLB41R8BFiIQN_IHh5bFD0U',
scope: 'user-modify-playback-state user-read-currently-playing'
}

The POST request:

async function addSong(channel, message, tags, FoundSongName, FoundSongUri, artists_names) {

    const uri = FoundSongUri.replace("/",":")

    const AddSongendpoint = ` https://api.spotify.com/v1/me/player/queue?uri=${uri}`

    try {

        await axios.post(AddSongendpoint, {

            headers: {

                'Authorization': `Bearer ${token}`

            }

        })

        client.say(`@${tags.username} der Song ${FoundSongName} - ${artists_names} wurde erfolgreich zur Warteschlange hinzugefügt!`)

        const SongQueuefilePath = path.join(__dirname, 'SongQueue.txt');

        const data = `${tags.username} - ${FoundSongName} - ${artists_names} - 0`

        fs.appendFile(SongQueuefilePath, data + '\n', (err) => {

            if (err) {

              console.error('Fehler beim Schreiben in die Datei:', err);

              return;

            }

            console.log('Daten wurden erfolgreich in die Datei geschrieben.');

          });

    }

    catch (error) {

        console.log('Error beim hinzufügen des Songs:', error)

        client.say(channel, `@${tags.username} der Song ${FoundSongName} - ${artists_names} konnte nicht in die Warteschlange hinzugefügt werden!`)

    }

Response:
response: {
status: 401,
statusText: 'Unauthorized',
headers: Object [AxiosHeaders] {
'www-authenticate': 'Bearer realm="spotify"',
'access-control-allow-origin': '*',
'access-control-allow-headers': 'Accept, App-Platform, Authorization, Content-Type, Origin, Retry-After, Spotify-App-Version, X-Cloud-Trace-Context, client-token, content-access-token',
'access-control-allow-methods': 'GET, POST, OPTIONS, PUT, DELETE, PATCH',
'access-control-allow-credentials': 'true',
'access-control-max-age': '604800',
'content-type': 'application/json',
'strict-transport-security': 'max-age=31536000',
'x-content-type-options': 'nosniff',
date: 'Mon, 25 Dec 2023 18:33:15 GMT',
server: 'envoy',
via: 'HTTP/2 edgeproxy, 1.1 google',
'alt-svc': 'h3=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-29=":443"; ma=2592000',
'transfer-encoding': 'chunked'
}

method: 'post',
url: ' ',
data: '{"headers":{"Authorization":"Bearer BQCqp...-yINtVT5rYergy3P0T47GDDgNiP6NzwENUq6ZzxTSjlUxWgspXWEAMoJXWGI_V9GP0y4F8xvcD0nPpG0znlIoZuQ9M4ogCVe"}}'
},

[Th3Liron]

Yoo, just fixed it for add Song, I gave the Headers in the Data object 🙈 Volume still don't works, idk why, but I ll find it out. So thank you again for the help and have nice days!

*edit: Everything works now, tysm 🙂

[andreemalerva]

Hi!
This has to do with the 'scopes', when you create the token you must set the rules for that token, as the documentation mentions here.
https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/tutorials/code-flow

Por example:

var scopes = "user-read-private user-read-email ugc-image-upload user-read-playback-state user-modify-playback-state user-read-currently-playing playlist-read-private playlist-read-collaborative user-read-recently-played";

var client_ID = '2524'
const dev =
  `https://accounts.spotify.com/authorize?client_id=`+client_ID+`&response_type=code&redirect_uri=http://localhost:3000/login&scope=` +
  scopes;