Invoke-RestMethod : The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.

[JuddSteven]

Hi Community,

I'm trying to utilize REST API to do some automations.

My code is working well on my developer instance:

# Eg. User name="admin", Password="admin" for this code sample.
$user = "admin"
$pass = "admin"

# Build auth header
$base64AuthInfo = [Convert]::ToBase64String([Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes(("{0}:{1}" -f $user, $pass)))

# Set proper headers
$headers = New-Object "System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary[[String],[String]]"
$headers.Add('Authorization',('Basic {0}' -f $base64AuthInfo))
$headers.Add('Accept','application/json')


# Specify endpoint uri
$uri = "https://downeritadtl.service-now.com/api/now/table/incident?sysparm_query=number%3DINC0222772&sysparm_limit=1"

# Specify HTTP method
$method = "get"

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = "tls12, tls11, tls"

# Send HTTP request
$response = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers $headers -Method $method -Uri $uri 

# Print response
$response.Result

I tried it on a client instance without  admin role and its working fine as well.

However I get the following issue on another instance:

Invoke-RestMethod : The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.
At line:23 char:13
+ $response = Invoke-RestMethod -Headers $headers -Method $method -Uri ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (System.Net.HttpWebRequest:HttpWebRequest) [Invoke-RestMethod], WebException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : WebCmdletWebResponseException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.InvokeRestMethodCommand

The user that is using the instance that is getting the error already has an admin role.

What could be causing the 401?

[Giles Lewis]

401 for GET almost always means bad username or bad password.

If you are blocked by an ACL the status will 200 with no data.

[suglosta]

Hi,

I am not expecting you still have this issue but just to prevent other people from wasting the time.

If your password is strong enough and contain some chars like $ you must use single quotes.

$user = 'admin'
$pass = 'admin'

[Kalpana11]

I am also getting same error 

Invoke-RestMethod : The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.

Please help here