[google-api] invalid_grant trying to get oAuth token from google

I keep getting an invalid_grant error on trying to get an oAuth token from Google to connect to their contacts api. All the information is correct and I have tripple checked this so kind of stumped.

Does anyone know what may be causing this issue? I have tried setting up a different client id for it but I get the same result, I have tried connecting many different ways including trying the force authentication, but still the same result.

This question is related to google-api

The answer is


There is a undocumented timeout between when you first redirect the user to the google authentication page (and get back a code), and when you take the returned code and post it to the token url. It works fine for me with the actual google supplied client_id as opposed to an "undocumented email address". I just needed to start the process again.


Look at this https://dev.to/risafj/beginner-s-guide-to-oauth-understanding-access-tokens-and-authorization-codes-2988

First you need an access_token:

$code = $_GET['code'];

$clientid = "xxxxxxx.apps.googleusercontent.com";
$clientsecret = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v4/token");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "client_id=".urlencode($clientid)."&client_secret=".urlencode($clientsecret)."&code=".urlencode($code)."&grant_type=authorization_code&redirect_uri=". urlencode("https://yourdomain.com"));
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded'));

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$server_output = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close ($ch);

$server_output = json_decode($server_output);
$access_token = $server_output->access_token;
$refresh_token = $server_output->refresh_token;
$expires_in = $server_output->expires_in;

Safe the Access Token and the Refresh Token and the expire_in, in a Database. The Access Token expires after $expires_in seconds. Than you need to grab a new Access Token (and safe it in the Database) with the following Request:

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v4/token");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "client_id=".urlencode($clientid)."&client_secret=".urlencode($clientsecret)."&refresh_token=".urlencode($refresh_token)."&grant_type=refresh_token");
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded'));

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$server_output = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close ($ch);

$server_output = json_decode($server_output);
$access_token = $server_output->access_token;
$expires_in = $server_output->expires_in;

Bear in Mind to add the redirect_uri Domain to your Domains in your Google Console: https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/credentials in the Tab "OAuth 2.0-Client-IDs". There you find also your Client-ID and Client-Secret.


There are two major reasons for invalid_grant error which you have to take care prior to the POST request for Refresh Token and Access Token.

  1. Request header must contain "content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
  2. Your request payload should be url encoded Form Data, don't send as json object.

RFC 6749 OAuth 2.0 defined invalid_grant as: The provided authorization grant (e.g., authorization code, resource owner credentials) or refresh token is invalid, expired, revoked, does not match the redirection URI used in the authorization request, or was issued to another client.

I found another good article, here you will find many other reasons for this error.

https://blog.timekit.io/google-oauth-invalid-grant-nightmare-and-how-to-fix-it-9f4efaf1da35


Using a Android clientId (no client_secret) I was getting the following error response:

{
 "error": "invalid_grant",
 "error_description": "Missing code verifier."
}

I cannot find any documentation for the field 'code_verifier' but I discovered if you set it to equal values in both the authorization and token requests it will remove this error. I'm not sure what the intended value should be or if it should be secure. It has some minimum length (16? characters) but I found setting to null also works.

I am using AppAuth for the authorization request in my Android client which has a setCodeVerifier() function.

AuthorizationRequest authRequest = new AuthorizationRequest.Builder(
                                    serviceConfiguration,
                                    provider.getClientId(),
                                    ResponseTypeValues.CODE,
                                    provider.getRedirectUri()
                            )
                            .setScope(provider.getScope())
                            .setCodeVerifier(null)
                            .build();

Here is an example token request in node:

request.post(
  'https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v4/token',
  { form: {
    'code': '4/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx',
    'code_verifier': null,
    'client_id': 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.apps.googleusercontent.com',
    'client_secret': null,
    'redirect_uri': 'com.domain.app:/oauth2redirect',
    'grant_type': 'authorization_code'
  } },
  function (error, response, body) {
    if (!error && response.statusCode == 200) {
      console.log('Success!');
    } else {
      console.log(response.statusCode + ' ' + error);
    }

    console.log(body);
  }
);

I tested and this works with both https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v4/token and https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token.

If you are using GoogleAuthorizationCodeTokenRequest instead:

final GoogleAuthorizationCodeTokenRequest req = new GoogleAuthorizationCodeTokenRequest(
                    TRANSPORT,
                    JSON_FACTORY,
                    getClientId(),
                    getClientSecret(),
                    code,
                    redirectUrl
);
req.set("code_verifier", null);          
GoogleTokenResponse response = req.execute();

For future folks... I read many articles and blogs but had luck with solution below...

GoogleTokenResponse tokenResponse =
      new GoogleAuthorizationCodeTokenRequest(
          new NetHttpTransport(),
          JacksonFactory.getDefaultInstance(),
          "https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v4/token",
          clientId,
          clientSecret,
          authCode,
          "") //Redirect Url
     .setScopes(scopes)
     .setGrantType("authorization_code")
     .execute();

This blog depicts different cases in which "invalid_grant" error comes.

Enjoy!!!


Try change your url for requst to

https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v4/token

if you are using scribe library, just set up the offline mode, like bonkydog suggested here is the code:

OAuthService service = new ServiceBuilder().provider(Google2Api.class).apiKey(clientId).apiSecret(apiSecret)
                .callback(callbackUrl).scope(SCOPE).offline(true)
                .build();

https://github.com/codolutions/scribe-java/


I ran into this same problem despite specifying the "offline" access_type in my request as per bonkydog's answer. Long story short I found that the solution described here worked for me:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-analytics-data-export-api/4uNaJtquxCs

In essence, when you add an OAuth2 Client in your Google API's console Google will give you a "Client ID" and an "Email address" (assuming you select "webapp" as your client type). And despite Google's misleading naming conventions, they expect you to send the "Email address" as the value of the client_id parameter when you access their OAuth2 API's.

This applies when calling both of these URL's:

Note that the call to the first URL will succeed if you call it with your "Client ID" instead of your "Email address". However using the code returned from that request will not work when attempting to get a bearer token from the second URL. Instead you will get an 'Error 400' and an "invalid_grant" message.


for me I had to make sure that the redirect_uri is an exact match to the one in the developer console Authorised redirect URIs, that fixed it for me, I was able to debug and know what exactly was the issue after switching from https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token to https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v4/token

I got a proper error:

{"error": "redirect_uri_mismatch",  "error_description": "Bad Request"}

I encountered the same problem. For me, I fixed this by using Email Address (the string that ends with [email protected]) instead of Client ID for client_id parameter value. The naming set by Google is confusing here.


The code you obtain in the URL after user consent has a very short expiry. Please obtain the code again and attempt to get access token within seconds (you have to hurry) and it should work. I can't find out the expiry period of code but it's literally very short.


My issue was that I used this URL:

https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token

When I should have used this URL:

https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v4/token

This was testing a service account which wanted offline access to the Storage engine.


I had this problem after enabling a new service API on the Google console and trying to use the previously made credentials.

To fix the problem, I had to go back to the credential page, clicking on the credential name, and clicking "Save" again. After that, I could authenticate just fine.


in this site console.developers.google.com

this console board select your project input the oath url. the oauth callback url will redirect when the oauth success


In my case, the issue was in my code. Mistakenly I've tried to initiate client 2 times with the same tokens. If none of the answers above helped make sure you do not generate 2 instances of the client.

My code before the fix:

def gc_service
      oauth_client = Signet::OAuth2::Client.new(client_options)
      oauth_client.code = params[:code]
      response = oauth_client.fetch_access_token!
      session[:authorization] = response
      oauth_client.update!(session[:authorization])

      gc_service = Google::Apis::CalendarV3::CalendarService.new
      gc_service.authorization = oauth_client

      gc_service
    end
primary_calendar_id = gc_service.list_calendar_lists.items.select(&:primary).first.id

gc_service.insert_acl(primary_calendar_id, acl_rule_object, send_notifications: false)

as soon as I change it to (use only one instance):

@gc_service = gc_service
primary_calendar_id = @gc_service.list_calendar_lists.items.select(&:primary).first.id

@gc_service.insert_acl(primary_calendar_id, acl_rule_object, send_notifications: false)

it fixed my issues with grant type.


For me the issues was I had multiple clients in my project and I am pretty sure this is perfectly alright, but I deleted all the client for that project and created a new one and all started working for me ( Got this idea fro WP_SMTP plugin help support forum) I am not able to find out that link for reference


If you are sanitizing user input (For example, $_GET["code"] in php) Make sure you don't accidentally replace something in the code.

The regex I am using is now /[^A-Za-z0-9\/-]/


We tried so many things, and in the end the issue was that the client had turned "Less Secure App Access" off in their Google Account settings.

To turn this on:

  1. Go to https://myaccount.google.com/ and manage account
  2. Go to the Security tab
  3. Turn Less secure app access on

enter image description here

I hope this saves someone some time!


You might have to remove a stale/invalid OAuth response.

Credit: node.js google oauth2 sample stopped working invalid_grant

Note: An OAuth response will also become invalid if the password used in the initial authorization has been changed.

If in a bash environment, you can use the following to remove the stale response:

rm /Users/<username>/.credentials/<authorization.json>


This is a silly answer, but the problem for me was that I failed to realize I already had been issued an active oAuth token for my google user which I failed to store. The solution in this case is to go to the api console and reset the client secret.

There are numerous other answers on SO to this effect for example Reset Client Secret OAuth2 - Do clients need to re-grant access?


I had the same error message 'invalid_grant' and it was because the authResult['code'] send from client side javascript was not received correctly on the server.

Try to output it back from the server to see if it is correct and not an empty string.


If you're testing this out in postman / insomnia and are just trying to get it working, hint: the server auth code (code parameter) is only good once. Meaning if you stuff up any of the other parameters in the request and get back a 400, you'll need to use a new server auth code or you'll just get another 400.


Although this is an old question, it seems like many still encounter it - we spent days on end tracking this down ourselves.

In the OAuth2 spec, "invalid_grant" is sort of a catch-all for all errors related to invalid/expired/revoked tokens (auth grant or refresh token).

For us, the problem was two-fold:

  1. User has actively revoked access to our app
    Makes sense, but get this: 12 hours after revocation, Google stops sending the error message in their response: “error_description” : “Token has been revoked.”
    It's rather misleading because you'll assume that the error message is there at all times which is not the case. You can check whether your app still has access at the apps permission page.

  2. User has reset/recovered their Google password
    In December 2015, Google changed their default behaviour so that password resets for non-Google Apps users would automatically revoke all the user's apps refresh tokens. On revocation, the error message follows the same rule as the case before, so you'll only get the "error_description" in the first 12 hours. There doesn't seem to be any way of knowing whether the user manually revoked access (intentful) or it happened because of a password reset (side-effect).

Apart from those, there's a myriad of other potential causes that could trigger the error:

  1. Server clock/time is out of sync
  2. Not authorized for offline access
  3. Throttled by Google
  4. Using expired refresh tokens
  5. User has been inactive for 6 months
  6. Use service worker email instead of client ID
  7. Too many access tokens in short time
  8. Client SDK might be outdated
  9. Incorrect/incomplete refresh token

I've written a short article summarizing each item with some debugging guidance to help find the culprit. Hope it helps.


Solved by removing all Authorized redirect URIs in Google console for the project. I use server side flow when you use 'postmessage' as redirect URI


After considering and trying all of the other ways here, here's how I solved the issue in nodejs with the googleapis module in conjunction with the request module, which I used to fetch the tokens instead of the provided getToken() method:

const request = require('request');

//SETUP GOOGLE AUTH
var google = require('googleapis');
const oAuthConfigs = rootRequire('config/oAuthConfig')
const googleOAuthConfigs = oAuthConfigs.google

//for google OAuth: https://github.com/google/google-api-nodejs-client
var OAuth2 = google.auth.OAuth2;
var googleOAuth2Client = new OAuth2(
    process.env.GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID || googleOAuthConfigs.clientId, 
    process.env.GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET || googleOAuthConfigs.clientSecret, 
    process.env.GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_REDIRECT_URL || googleOAuthConfigs.callbackUrl);

/* generate a url that asks permissions for Google+ and Google Calendar scopes
https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/googlescopes#monitoringv3*/
var googleOAuth2ClientScopes = [
    'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/plus.me',
    'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/userinfo.email'
];

var googleOAuth2ClientRedirectURL = process.env.GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_REDIRECT_URL || googleOAuthConfigs.callbackUrl; 

var googleOAuth2ClientAuthUrl = googleOAuth2Client.generateAuthUrl({
  access_type: 'offline', // 'online' (default) or 'offline' (gets refresh_token)
  scope: googleOAuth2ClientScopes // If you only need one scope you can pass it as string
});

//AFTER SETUP, THE FOLLOWING IS FOR OBTAINING TOKENS FROM THE AUTHCODE


        const ci = process.env.GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID || googleOAuthConfigs.clientId
        const cs = process.env.GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET || googleOAuthConfigs.clientSecret
        const ru = process.env.GOOGLE_OAUTH_CLIENT_REDIRECT_URL || googleOAuthConfigs.callbackUrl
        var oauth2Client = new OAuth2(ci, cs, ru);

        var hostUrl = "https://www.googleapis.com";
        hostUrl += '/oauth2/v4/token?code=' + authCode + '&client_id=' + ci + '&client_secret=' + cs + '&redirect_uri=' + ru + '&grant_type=authorization_code',
        request.post({url: hostUrl}, function optionalCallback(err, httpResponse, data) {
            // Now tokens contains an access_token and an optional refresh_token. Save them.
            if(!err) {
                //SUCCESS! We got the tokens
                const tokens = JSON.parse(data)
                oauth2Client.setCredentials(tokens);

                //AUTHENTICATED PROCEED AS DESIRED.
                googlePlus.people.get({ userId: 'me', auth: oauth2Client }, function(err, response) {
                // handle err and response
                    if(!err) {
                        res.status(200).json(response);
                    } else {
                        console.error("/google/exchange 1", err.message);
                        handleError(res, err.message, "Failed to retrieve google person");
                    }
                });
            } else {
                console.log("/google/exchange 2", err.message);
                handleError(res, err.message, "Failed to get access tokens", err.code);
            }
        });

I simply use request to make the api request via HTTP as described here: https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/OAuth2WebServer#offline

POST /oauth2/v4/token HTTP/1.1
Host: www.googleapis.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

code=4/P7q7W91a-oMsCeLvIaQm6bTrgtp7&
client_id=8819981768.apps.googleusercontent.com&
client_secret={client_secret}&
redirect_uri=https://oauth2.example.com/code&
grant_type=authorization_code