Receiving '401 Unauthorized' Error When Accessing Twitch API with a Stored Access Token

Other Questions Twitch
1

I’m experiencing an issue with the Twitch API authorization process. After obtaining an access token, I save it in my database, but whenever I attempt to retrieve user data later on, it results in an unauthorized error.

Here’s the situation: I complete the OAuth flow and receive an access token from Twitch, which I then store. However, when I execute an API call using this token, I encounter the following error:

{"error":"Unauthorized","status":401,"message":"Token invalid or missing required scope"}

To include the token, I use this approach in my code:

$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://api.twitch.tv/helix/users');
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 30);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);

if($accessToken) {
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, [
        'Authorization: Bearer ' . $accessToken,
        'Client-ID: ' . $clientID
    ]);
}

$response = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);

Interestingly, the token functions correctly immediately after the redirect, but it becomes invalid when I try to use it from a different page after saving it. Is there an expiration issue or something I’m overlooking in my approach? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

2

This sounds like a token storage issue, not an API problem. I’ve seen this before - it’s usually how you’re handling the token between storage and usage. First, check if your database field is big enough for the full token string. Access tokens can be really long, and if your VARCHAR field is too short, it’ll silently cut off the token. Also make sure you’re not accidentally adding whitespace or extra characters when you store or pull from the database. Try logging the exact token string right before your API call and compare the length with what you originally got. One more thing - make sure you’re using the same client ID from the OAuth flow, since tokens are tied to specific applications.

3

Had the same issue with Twitch’s API. Problem was I wasn’t validating tokens before making calls. Twitch tokens need validation against their endpoint regularly - even if there’s been time between getting and using the token. Your token might not be expired, but Twitch invalidates them for security reasons or account changes. Here’s what fixed it: validate your token before each API call by hitting https://id.twitch.tv/oauth2/validate with your stored token. If it’s invalid, refresh it with your refresh token, then make the actual call. This catches tokens that look valid but got revoked server-side.

4

Had this exact problem last month. It’s probably token encoding during storage. When you save tokens to your database, special characters get mangled if your charset settings are wrong. I was using utf8 instead of utf8mb4 and certain tokens would corrupt silently. Also check if you’re double-encoding or URL-encoding the token somewhere. Another gotcha is session interference - if you’re storing tokens in both session and database, make sure you’re pulling from the right source. Try bypassing storage entirely by hardcoding a fresh token directly in your API call to see if it’s storage corruption or something else.

5

make sure you’re saving the refresh token. twitch access tokens die after about 4 hours, so you gotta refresh them regularly. tons of people miss this and can’t figure out why their tokens work at first then break. oh and verify your scopes match what you’re actually calling in the API

6

check if you’re accidentally trimming the token somewhere in your code. i had the same weird issue where trim() was cutting off part of my bearer token - took me forever to figure out. also make sure your database connection isn’t timing out between storing and retrieving. sometimes the token saves fine but gets corrupted when you pull it back if there’s connection problems.