Twitch API client ID authentication issues

I’m working on a Python script that fetches chat data from Twitch streams and finds the most active chat moments. The goal is to analyze message volume over time and export the top chat spikes to a file for later review. My code keeps failing and I think there’s an issue with how I’m handling the client ID authentication but I’m not sure what’s wrong.

import requests
import json
import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import messagebox

def fetch_stream_chat(api_key, stream_id):
    endpoint = f"https://api.twitch.tv/v5/videos/{stream_id}/comments"
    request_headers = {"Client-ID": api_key}
    api_response = requests.get(endpoint, headers=request_headers)
    
    print(f"Request URL: {endpoint}")
    print(f"Response status: {api_response.status_code}")
    
    if api_response.status_code == 200:
        return api_response.json()
    else:
        messagebox.showerror("API Error", "Failed to fetch chat data. Check your credentials.")
        return []

def analyze_chat_activity(chat_data):
    activity_map = {}
    
    for entry in chat_data:
        time_offset = entry["content_offset_seconds"]
        msg_list = entry["messages"]
        
        if time_offset not in activity_map:
            activity_map[time_offset] = 0
        
        activity_map[time_offset] += len(msg_list)
    
    return activity_map

def get_peak_moments(activity_data):
    ranked_moments = sorted(activity_data.items(), key=lambda item: item[1], reverse=True)
    return ranked_moments[:10]

def setup_interface():
    root = tk.Tk()
    root.title("Chat Activity Analyzer")
    
    tk.Label(root, text="API Key:").pack()
    api_input = tk.Entry(root)
    api_input.pack()
    
    tk.Label(root, text="Stream ID:").pack()
    stream_input = tk.Entry(root)
    stream_input.pack()
    
    analyze_btn = tk.Button(root, text="Analyze")
    analyze_btn.pack()
    
    return api_input, stream_input, analyze_btn, root

def process_data(api_field, stream_field, btn):
    api_key = api_field.get()
    stream_id = stream_field.get()
    
    if not api_key or not stream_id:
        messagebox.showerror("Input Error", "Both fields are required.")
        return
    
    chat_data = fetch_stream_chat(api_key, stream_id)
    activity_data = analyze_chat_activity(chat_data)
    peak_moments = get_peak_moments(activity_data)
    
    with open("chat_peaks.txt", "w") as output_file:
        for timestamp, count in peak_moments:
            output_file.write(f"Time: {timestamp}s - Messages: {count}\n")
    
    messagebox.showinfo("Complete", "Results saved to chat_peaks.txt")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    api_field, stream_field, btn, root = setup_interface()
    btn.config(command=lambda: process_data(api_field, stream_field, btn))
    root.mainloop()

I’ve been debugging this for hours but the API calls keep failing. Any ideas what might be wrong with the authentication setup?

quick check - are you getting a 401 or different error code? if its 401 then defintely auth issue but if 410 or 404 that confirms the endpoint is gone. btw your error handling only shows a popup but doesnt print the actual response body which might have usefull error details from twitch

Had this exact frustration when migrating my own chat analyzer project. The core problem is you’re hitting a deprecated endpoint that Twitch shut down, but there’s another issue in your code structure - you’re trying to process chat data with the old comments format which won’t work with current APIs anyway. For live chat analysis you’ll need to connect to Twitch’s IRC server (irc.chat.twitch.tv) or use WebSocket connections to capture real-time messages, then implement your own timestamping logic. The authentication becomes much simpler with IRC since you just need an OAuth token in the PASS field. I ended up rewriting my entire approach because the VOD comments API was limited even when it worked - real-time capture gives you much better data for activity analysis.

yep that v5 endpoint is dead, been there. also your missing the accept header - should be “Accept”: “application/vnd.twitchtv.v5+json” but honestly dont bother since its deprecated anyway. switch to helix api and get a proper oauth token from twitch dev console first

Another thing worth checking is your Client-ID format itself - make sure you’re using the actual Client-ID from your Twitch application settings, not an OAuth token or other credential. I’ve seen people accidentally paste their client secret or app access token in the Client-ID field which causes authentication failures. Even if you migrate to Helix API like others suggested, you’ll still need both a valid Client-ID and Authorization header with 'Bearer ’ prefix. Quick test would be to make a simple request to the Helix users endpoint first to verify your credentials work before tackling the chat data problem. Also double-check that your Twitch application has the correct scopes enabled in the dev console - some endpoints require specific permissions even with proper authentication headers.

The main issue is that you’re using the deprecated v5 API endpoint which requires additional authentication beyond just the Client-ID header. Twitch retired the v5 API in 2021 and now requires OAuth tokens for most endpoints. You need to switch to the Helix API and include an Authorization header with a Bearer token alongside your Client-ID. For chat data specifically, you’ll want to look into the Twitch EventSub API or IRC for real-time chat, as the comments endpoint you’re using was primarily for VOD comments. I ran into this exact problem last year when updating an old bot - the authentication flow is completely different now and requires proper OAuth implementation rather than just passing the client ID as a header.