trouble setting up credentials in Spotipy

Question

I'm trying to run some simple code from the Spotipy docs:

scope = 'user-library-read'

if len(sys.argv) > 1:
    username = sys.argv[1]
else:
    print ("Usage: %s username" % (sys.argv[0],))
    sys.exit()

token = util.prompt_for_user_token(username, scope)

I've already tried to set up my credentials in my terminal (Ubuntu) by running:

$ export SPOTIPY_CLIENT_ID='[my id]'

$ export SPOTIPY_CLIENT_SECRET='[my secret]'

$ export SPOTIPY_REDIRECT_URI='localhost:8888/callback'

Still, I get this:

  You need to set your Spotify API credentials. You can do this by
            setting environment variables like so:

            export SPOTIPY_CLIENT_ID='your-spotify-client-id'
            export SPOTIPY_CLIENT_SECRET='your-spotify-client-secret'
            export SPOTIPY_REDIRECT_URI='your-app-redirect-url'

            Get your credentials at     
                https://developer.spotify.com/my-applications

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SpotifyException                          Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-13-e24370a9caf8> in <module>()
      7     sys.exit()
      8 
----> 9 token = util.prompt_for_user_token(username, scope)

/home/user/anaconda3/envs/Python3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/spotipy/util.py in prompt_for_user_token(username, scope, client_id, client_secret, redirect_uri)
     45                 https://developer.spotify.com/my-applications
     46         ''')
---> 47         raise spotipy.SpotifyException(550, -1, 'no credentials set')
     48 
     49     sp_oauth = oauth2.SpotifyOAuth(client_id, client_secret, redirect_uri, 

SpotifyException: http status: 550, code:-1 - no credentials set

What am I doing wrong? I haven't been able to find a clean rundown of how to fix this anywhere.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Answer 1

If you are struggling to use the environment vars you can try using configparser instead:

import configparser

import spotipy
import spotipy.oauth2 as oauth2

config = configparser.ConfigParser()
config.read('config.cfg')
client_id = config.get('SPOTIFY', 'CLIENT_ID')
client_secret = config.get('SPOTIFY', 'CLIENT_SECRET')


auth = oauth2.SpotifyClientCredentials(
    client_id=client_id,
    client_secret=client_secret
)

token = auth.get_access_token()
spotify = spotipy.Spotify(auth=token)

The config.cfg should look like this:

[SPOTIFY]
CLIENT_ID=xxxx
CLIENT_SECRET=xxxx

If you're using a git repository add:

*.cfg

To the .gitignore so your keys aren't included into the repo.