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twitteroauth

Twitter request token OAuth 401 error

Trying to add twitter login using OAuth and it has been a nightmare to get the first step of requesting the token, which results in 401 error as always.

I used twitter's Test OAuth tool to compare the http request that my scala server sends.
Curl request works while my server request fails. Pasting them below for comparison.

Curl Request

curl --request 'POST' 'https://api.twitter.com/oauth/request_token' --data 'oauth_callback=http%3A%2F%2F0.0.0.0%3A8081%2Fweb' --header 'Authorization: OAuth oauth_consumer_key="wRflKWWomJ9jKeK8wbTk0Jck3", oauth_nonce="46ef029600fcc2a6cbe068eb9711401c", oauth_signature="3ptB%2B6%2Fv9QYGgyQjO9DhuD7pmzA%3D", oauth_signature_method="HMAC-SHA1", oauth_timestamp="1422879905", oauth_version="1.0"' --verbose

Scala server Request

HttpRequest(POST,https://api.twitter.com/oauth/request_token,List(Authorization: OAuth oauth_consumer_key="wRflKWWomJ9jKeK8wbTk0Jck3", oauth_nonce="70449464359328", oauth_signature="yEni23tuzEveIMtDm7%2F8N2anU%2FM%3D", oauth_signature_method="HMAC-SHA1", oauth_timestamp="1422879900", oauth_version="1.0"),HttpEntity(application/x-www-form-urlencoded,oauth_callback=http%3A%2F%2F0.0.0.0%3A8081%2Fweb),HTTP/1.1)

Things I tried:

  • Made sure timestamp is within 5 minutes
  • Made sure "Allow this application to be used to Sign in with Twitter" is set in twitter settings.
  • Callback url is set - http://0.0.0.0:8081/web (even tried proxy names for localhost by changing ip table)
  • Tried generating request token using Saclaj
  • Used custom OAuth signature request primarily using OAuth.scala

This 401 twitter request token seems to be a recurring theme for many folks, complicated by various failure points. Any help is much appreciated.

Solution

  • For anyone else facing this issue, I am listing down few things that you could benefit from.

    After excruciating attempts of permutations and combinations, oauth_token had to be a part of the signature (even if its value is empty string).

    I am not sure if it is mentioned anywhere and particularly ironic that you had to remove access token and secret while using Twitter's OAuth testing tool (for the Curl command to work properly which took some bloody lot of time to figure out.)

    • It is good to validate your basestring - Tool

    • Validating if your signature process is correct - Check point (f)