OAuth Access Token Request

tjrigario · ‎04-28-2015

Hello,

I believe that there is an error either in the product documentation or the OAuth implementation. Upon requesting an access token with valid credentials, I consistently receive a 401 Unauthorized message.

JSON Response: {"error":"server_error","error_description":"access_denied"}

I've been unsuccessful at making the OAuth implementation work at all. Using the classic Authorization header method works just fine.

Chris

mayank3103 · ‎06-09-2017

Replying to this post a bit late, so joining the party when this might be resolved. But might be helpful for others

I was also having a similar issue.

JSON Response: {"error":"server_error","error_description":"access_denied"}

Steps taken:

1) Make sure Authorization is "No Auth"

2) Make sure the Body is x-www-form-encoded

curl -X POST \

https:///instance.service-now.com/oauth_token.do \

-H 'cache-control: no-cache' \

-H 'content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \

-H 'postman-token: 53f8a8f7-f286-607f-1e7e-8dab629081fb' \

-d 'grant_type=password&client_id=ac0dd3408c1031006907010c2cc6ef6d&client_secret=bv4gg7o7akbc18jjy13m&username=admin&password=admin'

3) As a result you would see the Request Headers automatically pulled up as

Now use the access_token in subsequent requests. Adding the header as Authorization: Bearer <access_token>

curl -X GET \

'https:///instance.service-now.com/api/now/table/sys_user?sysparm_display_value=true&sysparm_fields=n...' \

-H 'authorization: Bearer Icru5EyU4ZrgngoB0ecHp_LcXJHm-nB1NBt2QXaEXhYoPZcd6ss6KS4mLGfApGDDsi6ka86zdabHMgKX8doeHA' \

-H 'cache-control: no-cache' \

-H 'postman-token: e2073e4f-d09e-f19b-b510-5779f9ba415a' \

View solution in original post

mahi4889Snow · ‎08-21-2017

HI Mayank,

This works if I try with local user account with credential, I am getting following error if I try AD/LDAP credential,

Error OAuth 2 Response 'Access Token' Request failed: unauthorized (401)

HTTP 401

---Body---

{"error_description":"access_denied","error":"server_error"}

Please advice

Rick Seiden · ‎04-09-2019

I know this was two years ago, but this is what solved it for me. Knowing to send in the data as applicatoin/x-www-form-urlencoded. Thanks!

tjrigario · ‎04-12-2019

I ended up working around this issue at the time by using the XML API since the product documentation on REST was lackluster. This is a good explanation of how to make it work.

Charles Q · ‎02-12-2021

Can anyone explain to me why this question referenced the grant type of client_credential, but the accepted solution uses password instead? I have an issue with using grant_type = client_credentials, and need help with that. Any help?