Keep getting OAuth::Unauthorized error when using oauth and twitter ruby gems

Question

I am using the ruby twitter gem and oauth to gain access to users twitter accounts. In my code, I have:

unless @user.twitter_authd?
      oauth = Twitter::OAuth.new('token', 'secret')
      session[:twitter_request_token] = oauth.request_token.token
      session[:twitter_request_secret] = oauth.request_token.secret
      @twitter_auth_url = oauth.request_token.authorize_url
    end

where token and secret have my actual token and secret inserted. When I click on the link to the @twitter_auth_url, I am taken to twitter and asked to grant access. I click allow and then twitter redirects me to my callback URL http://www.mydomain.com/twitter%5Fcallback/?oauth%5Ftoken=fmy2aMvnjVgaFrz37bJ4JuB8r5xN79gsgDQRG4BNY which then hits this code:

oauth = Twitter::OAuth.new('token', 'secret')

    logger.info("session[:twitter_request_token] = #{session[:twitter_request_token]}")
    logger.info("session[:twitter_request_secret] = #{session[:twitter_request_secret]}")

    oauth.authorize_from_request(session[:twitter_request_token], session[:twitter_request_secret])
    session[:twitter_request_token] = nil
    session[:twitter_request_secret] = nil

    @user.update_attributes({
      :twitter_token => oauth.access_token.token, 
      :twitter_secret => oauth.access_token.secret,
    })

    redirect_to root_path

The twitter request token and secret are being set just fine. However I end up with an authorization error:

 OAuth::Unauthorized in MainController#twitter_callback

401 Unauthorized

RAILS_ROOT: /Users/TAmoyal/Desktop/RoR_Projects/mls
Application Trace | Framework Trace | Full Trace

/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/oauth-0.3.4/lib/oauth/consumer.rb:167:in `token_request'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/oauth-0.3.4/lib/oauth/tokens/request_token.rb:14:in `get_access_token'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/erwaller-twitter-0.6.13.1/lib/twitter/oauth.rb:29:in `authorize_from_request'
/Users/TAmoyal/Desktop/RoR_Projects/mls/app/controllers/main_controller.rb:70:in `twitter_callback'

The code is failing at this line:

oauth.authorize_from_request(session[:twitter_request_token], session[:twitter_request_secret])

when it tries to get an access token. You can see the source code of authorize_from_request here. I am not sure why this is happening. Anyone have ideas?

Answer 1

not enough info for me, but when was twitter gem last updated? twitter changed their oauth 'stuff' in mid may approx. perhaps you have an old one. I'd update your question to show the callback_url, and make sure you have the right token and secret, which it looks like you don't have.

also, did you put the right callback url in your twitter app page? alot of times that screws you up too.

if that fails use mbleighs twitter_auth instead. it worked for me and is pretty slick.

Answer 2

This was one of the most annoying things to debug that I have come across. I was outputting in a couple places by accident because the URL's are dynamic and they happened to not be defined in my test case (i use this to display chart data and there is not enough right now so the google chart api URL's are blank). This caused my browser to make multiple requests to my localhost when some pages were loaded. Somehow that made the oauth process crap out. Obviously there is no way for people on S.O. to know about my application specific issue so I had to answer my own question.

Answer 3

A bit late to the party but just ran into the same issue myself. I tracked the issue down to the setup of my OAuth app in Twitter. I had initially not specified a callback URL as I was unsure of it.

Once I had setup my rails app I went back to find Twitter had assumed I was a desktop application as I hadn't specified a callback URL. Once I changed this to website and entered a callback URL I stopped getting 400s.

Answer 4

this is an issue about time synchronization of your system with twitter server.