Assistance with 401 Unauthorized Error for API Access

Beginners
1

I am currently encountering an issue while attempting to use the Hugging Face Inference API with access tokens. Despite following all documentation and testing multiple configurations, I am consistently receiving a 401 Unauthorized error when calling the /models endpoint.

Here is a summary of the steps I have taken to troubleshoot this issue:

  1. I generated both read-only and fine-grained tokens from my account settings.
  2. I ensured the tokens include permissions for:
  • Making calls to the serverless Inference API.
  • Making calls to Inference Endpoints.
  1. I verified that my network settings allow the API to be reached, as confirmed by successful TLS handshakes.
  2. I tested the tokens using both curl and Python, specifically targeting:
  • https://huggingface.co/proxy/api-inference.huggingface.co/models
  • https://huggingface.co/proxy/api-inference.huggingface.co/models/distilbert-base-uncased
  1. All attempts resulted in the same 401 Unauthorized error, despite using valid tokens.

Based on the error and my troubleshooting, I suspect the issue might be related to the limitations of a free-tier account. Could you kindly confirm:

  1. Whether a paid subscription is required to access the /models endpoint or specific API features?
  2. If there are other configurations or settings I might be missing to enable access with a free-tier account?

I greatly appreciate your guidance and support in resolving this issue. Please let me know if additional details are needed.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Best regards,
Miguel Crespo

2

That’s strange, it’s working fine over here. Try this.
https://huggingface.co/proxy/api-inference.huggingface.co/models/distilbert/distilbert-base-uncased

3

Thank you John,

To be more specific, I’m getting a 401 error at my end when I try to use a token that I had created. Please see curl verbose output:

curl -v -H “Authorization: Bearer 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” https://huggingface.co/proxy/api-inference.huggingface.co/models

< HTTP/2 401
< date: Sun, 01 Dec 2024 02:44:17 GMT
< content-length: 0
< vary: Origin, Access-Control-Request-Method, Access-Control-Request-Headers
< x-request-id: -x55LlHujz9vzSw9J7-gp
< access-control-allow-credentials: true
<

image
image1380Ă—1067 44 KB

Thank you!

4

Thanks for the details. It looks like this, but the strange thing is that there shouldn’t be a problem even if you don’t specify it in particular, and it doesn’t look like an SSL error from the message content…

Adding a header “Connection: close” to your CURL command should solve the problem:
curl -v -H “Connection: close” https://example.com

5

[quote=“John6666, post:4, topic:128643”]
message
[/quote] Hi John, really appreciate you looking into this, I tried incorporating your suggestion but unfortunately I get the same error, HTTP/2 400, invalid token.

I generated both read-only and fine-grained tokens from my account settings. But I always get invalid token at the HF end.

All seems correct, but somehow HF says the token is invalid.

Please see screenshot.

Thanks for your help!

image
image1719Ă—1174 204 KB

6

@not-lain @meganariley Weird 401 problem.

7

Hi john,

Do you think this could be because I need to have a paid subscription? Do you manage to get tokens and then use them?

Thank you!

8

It’s true that there are advantages for those who subscribe to the paid plan, but I don’t think that’s the case here. If it’s because you’re a free member, I think you’d get a different error rather than a 401 error…

9

Hi John,

I don’t know if this is possible, but would you be able to run this command in your environment and see if you still get the same error?

Not sure if I can ask this, if not, not to worry. I’ll try something else :slight_smile:

curl -v -H “Authorization: Bearer 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” -H “Connection: close” https://huggingface.co/proxy/api-inference.huggingface.co/models

Thank you!

10

There’s nothing wrong with it. I’ll hide some of it, but it’s generally like this. Windows CMD.
Incidentally, the result was exactly the same even if I used my own token.

Host api-inference.huggingface.co:443 was resolved.

*   Trying 35.171.117.73:443...
* Connected to api-inference.huggingface.co (35.171.117.73) port 443
* schannel: disabled automatic use of client certificate
* ALPN: curl offers http/1.1
* using HTTP/1.x
> GET /models HTTP/1.1
> Host: api-inference.huggingface.co
> User-Agent: curl/8.9.1
> Accept: */*
> Authorization: Bearer hf_*******
> Connection: close
>
* Request completely sent off
* schannel: server close notification received (close_notify)
< HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
< Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2024 07:41:39 GMT
< Content-Length: 0
< Connection: close
< access-control-allow-credentials: true
< x-request-id: ********
< vary: Origin, Access-Control-Request-Method, Access-Control-Request-Headers
<
* shutting down connection #0
* schannel: shutting down SSL/TLS connection with api-inference.huggingface.co port 443
11

Hi John,

Thank you so much for your help, much appreciated. I will repost the issue again on the forum and see if someone from support can help me on this.

Have a great day!

Miguel.

12

I get the same 401 error when trying to connect to HF inference endpoints with any model, and I have a paid subscription.

danielbyrne@Daniels-MacBook-Pro FunctionalNetworksSFT % curl -s https://huggingface.co/api/whoami -H “Authorization: Bearer $HF_TOKEN”
{“error”:“Invalid credentials in Authorization header”}

13

Oh. whoami is virtually deprecated. Try whoami-v2 instead.

curl -s https://huggingface.co/api/whoami-v2 -H "Authorization: Bearer $HF_TOKEN"
14

hi @miguelcrespo did you manage a breakthrough? months later i am facing the same issue!