AUTHENTICATION_DENIED error when accessing Confluence content via REST API Call
Platform notice: Server and Data Center only. This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Server and Data Center platforms.
Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Platform Notice: Data Center - This article applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.
Note that this knowledge base article was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center knowledge base articles for non-Data Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Problem
A user with the correct permissions and privileges is receiving an AUTHENTICATION_DENIED error code when attempting to access Confluence content via the REST API. The user's credentials are correct and no other permissions issues would account for why this error would appear for the requestor.
Example
Below is a sample request that is sent to retrieve content from Confluence REST API:
curl -v -u admin -X GET "http:<Confluence-Base-URL>/rest/api/content/rest/api/content?type=blogpost&start=0&limit=10&expand=space,history,body.view,metadata.labels" | python -mjson.toolHere is the response received after supplying the correct credentials
> GET /rest/api/content/rest/api/content?type=blogpost&start=0&limit=10&expand=space,history,body.view,metadata.labels HTTP/1.1
> Host: HOST:PORT
> Authorization: Basic XXXXX
> User-Agent: curl/7.54.0
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
< Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1
< X-Seraph-LoginReason: AUTHENTICATION_DENIED
< WWW-Authenticate: OAuth realm="HOST"
< Content-Type: text/html;charset=utf-8
< Content-Language: en
< Content-Length: 1116
< Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 23:07:20 GMT
<
{ [1116 bytes data]
100 1116 100 1116 0 0 13605 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 13777
* Connection #0 to host localhost left intactResponse
Diagnosis
Environment
Confluence
Cause
If a user has previously failed authentication more than the allowed times before the CAPTCHA challenge is triggered, the user may receive the AUTHENTICATION_DENIED error until their Failed Login Count is reset.
Resolution
- From the Confluence UI,
-> User Management - Search for affected user and click on the user name from the search results
- From the user profile, review the user profile and note the value for Current Failed Login Count. This value may be greater than your current allowance (see Configuring CAPTCHA for Failed Logins for more info).
- If the failed login count is high, you can manually set the failed login count for the user back to zero by clicking Reset Failed Login Count.
- Reattempt your call to the REST API