"Error parsing JSON" when using Spotify API

Question

I am learning Python and I am trying to create a playlist using the Spotify web api but get a http 400 error: Error parsing json. I guess it has to do with an incorrect variable type in the token but I am having a really hard time debugging it as I can't figure out a way to see the post request in raw format.

Posting through the API requires authorizing and this is the script I've created for that:

import requests
import base64
requests.packages.urllib3.disable_warnings()

client_id = 'ID'
client_secret = 'SECRET'
redirect_uri = 'http://spotify.com/'
scope = 'playlist-modify-private playlist-read-private'

def request_token():

    #  1. Your application requests authorization
    auth_url = 'https://accounts.spotify.com/authorize'
    payload = {'client_id': client_id, 'response_type':'code','redirect_uri':redirect_uri}
    auth = requests.get(auth_url,params = payload)
    print '\nPlease go to this url to authorize ', auth.url

    #  2. The user is asked to authorize access within the scopes
    #  3. The user is redirected back to your specified URI
    resp_url = raw_input('\nThen please copy-paste the url you where redirected to: ')
    resp_code= resp_url.split("?code=")[1].split("&")[0]

    #  4. Your application requests refresh and access tokens
    token_url = 'https://accounts.spotify.com/api/token'
    payload = {'redirect_uri': redirect_uri,'code': resp_code, 'grant_type': 'authorization_code','scope':scope}
    auth_header = base64.b64encode(client_id + ':' + client_secret)
    headers = {'Authorization': 'Basic %s' % auth_header}
    req = requests.post(token_url, data=payload, headers=headers, verify=True)
    response = req.json()

    return response

This is the function actually trying to create the playlist using the authorization token (import authorizer is the function above):

import requests
import authorizer

def create_playlist(username, list_name):
    token = authorizer.request_token()
    access_token = token['access_token']
    auth_header = {'Authorization': 'Bearer {token}'.format(token=access_token), 'Content-Type': 'application/json'}
    api_url = 'https://api.spotify.com/v1/users/%s/playlists' % username
    payload = {'name': list_name, 'public': 'false'}
    r = requests.post(api_url, params=payload, headers=auth_header)

But whatever I try it only leads to a 400 error. Can anyone please point out my error here?

Could you provide more of the error output? Do you have the line number the error occurs on? — Celeo
– Celeo, Commented Apr 27, 2015 at 20:11
@Celeo, this is the response coming back from the Web API, so there's nothing in the code that's throwing an error. — Michael Thelin
– Michael Thelin, Commented Apr 28, 2015 at 7:31
My suspicion is that either last_name is empty, or that the public value 'false' needs to be an actual boolean and not a string. — Michael Thelin
– Michael Thelin, Commented Apr 28, 2015 at 7:32

Erik · Accepted Answer · 2015-05-07 12:02:56Z

5

Solved by adding a json.dumps for the input: json.dumps(payload) and changing the payload to be 'data' and not 'params' in the request.

So the new functioning request equals:

r = requests.post(api_url, data=json.dumps(payload), headers=auth_header)

answered May 7, 2015 at 12:02

Erik

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1 Comment

akn Over a year ago

Hmm it's interesting. I don't have a problem with data=payload in authorization (I don't need to call json.dumps()), but I have it in creating playlist. Fortunately your solution helped. Thanks.

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