Getting an exception while using authorize() method

[nirajsp47]

Hi, I am getting a Refresh error exception when I try to execute the authorize() method.

  raise exceptions.RefreshError(
google.auth.exceptions.RefreshError: ('invalid_client: Unauthorized', {'error': 'invalid_client', 'error_description': 'Unauthorized'

I am passing the "client_secret.json" file as a parameter :

gc = pygsheets.authorize(client_secret="client_secret.json")

Surprisingly, when I use the same json file renamed as "credentials.json" in basic example provided by ghseets, I dont see any issue.

 if not creds or not creds.valid:
    if creds and creds.expired and creds.refresh_token:
      creds.refresh(Request())
    else:
      flow = InstalledAppFlow.from_client_secrets_file(
          "credentials.json", SCOPES
      ) 

My json file is in this format :

{"installed":
   {
   "client_id":"",
   "project_id":"",
   "auth_uri":"https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth",
   "token_uri":"https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token",
   "auth_provider_x509_cert_url":"https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/certs",
   "client_secret":"",
   "redirect_uris":
   }
}

Can you please help to understand what am I missing?
Is there a possibility that the json file format from google has changed?

[pkkid]

Hitting the same issue, not sure whats wrong with the request.

[bijanvakili]

@nirajsp47 Your guess is correct. The credentials format was not the same and the library is saving in the wrong format.

I posted a fix #618 as a fix which uses Google's OAuth library instead to save the credentials.

Until that PR gets merged and released, you can also use this workaround to overwrite the JSON file immediately after authentication before operating on the spreadsheet.

# temporary workaround
def _save_valid_credentials(client: pygsheets.client.Client):
    with open(
        f"{os.getcwd()}/sheets.googleapis.com-python.json",
        mode="w",
        encoding="utf_8",
    ) as credential_file:
        credential_file.write(client.oauth.to_json())


...
def __main__():
  ...
  # authorize as usual
  gsheet_client = pygsheets.authorize(
      client_secret='...',
  )
  # overrwrite the saved credentials immediately with the above routine so that subsequent refresh runs will not crash
  _save_valid_credentials(gsheet_client)
 ...
  # ... continue as usual ...

[bijanvakili]

Using the Google Sheets Python quickstart guide, I have discovered that you can also implement your own credentials flow and pass this to the custom_credentials parameter in pygsheets.authorize

import os

from google_auth_oauthlib.flow import InstalledAppFlow
from google.auth.transport.requests import Request
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
import pygsheets

TOKEN_FILE = ".token.json"
SCOPES = ["https://www.googleapis.com/auth/spreadsheets"]


def _load_and_cache_credentials(secret_config_filename: str) -> Credentials:
    creds = None
    # The file token.json stores the user's access and refresh tokens
    if os.path.exists(TOKEN_FILE):
        creds = Credentials.from_authorized_user_file(TOKEN_FILE, SCOPES)

    # If there are no (valid) credentials available, let the user log in.
    if not creds or not creds.valid:
        if creds and creds.expired and creds.refresh_token:
            creds.refresh(Request())
        else:
            flow = InstalledAppFlow.from_client_secrets_file(
                secret_config_filename, SCOPES
            )
            creds = flow.run_local_server(port=0)

        # Save the credentials for the next run
        with open(TOKEN_FILE, "w", encoding="utf_8") as token:
            token.write(creds.to_json())
    return creds

def __main__():
    # authenticate
    creds = _load_and_cache_credentials(config.credentials_file)

    # connect to spreadsheet
    gsheet_client = pygsheets.authorize(custom_credentials=creds)
   ...