403, Error: User does not have sufficient permission for site---Google Search Console OAuth access token

Question

We have been using OAuth 2.0 for authenticating google search console webmasters API. we are mainly hitting two endpoints /sites and /searchAnalytics/query to fetch sites and sitemaps data. Interestingly, the access_token which got generated using refresh_token is able to retrieve data for sites but not for sitemaps. For sitemaps it's throwing error:

HTTP-error-code: 403, Error: User does not have sufficient permission for site https://www.example.com See also: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2451999

This behaviour has started since June 4, 2022. Prior to that it's been working perfectly fine.

Answer 1

User does not have sufficient permission for site

This error means that the currently authenticated user does not have permission to access the site you are trying to retrieve data for.

For example the sitesmaps.list method will return a list of all sites that the currently authenticated user has access to.

While a sitesmaps.get method requires that you send a url of the site you would like to retrieve information for.

If the user who is currently authenticated does not have access to that site then you will get the error you are getting.

The solution would be to authorize your application with a user who has access. Or use a service account and configure delegation Managing owners, users, and permissions