We are aware of the issue with the badge emails resending to everyone, we apologise for the inconvenience - learn more here.

Forum Discussion

Vicne's avatar
Vicne
Explorer | Level 4
5 years ago

Dropbox not sending refresh_token using new OAuth2 flow

Hi,

 

(Sorry I first posted this as a reply to this "solved" topic, which was a bad idea because it's mostly unrelated)

 

I'm developing a "native" app (called Ginj), and started Dropbox integration a few weeks ago.

I first used Dropbox's Java API for authorization, using PKCE and "copy/paste" from browser to app, and it seemed to work pretty well but now it seems I'm forced to re-authorize regularly.

After checking the received tokens, they are now indeed short-lived "sl-..." tokens, so I decided to call the REST OAuth API myself to see if I could implement the updated flow, and also get rid of the copy/paste step.

I think I'm nearly done, but when exchanging the received code for tokens, the response I'm getting contains an "access_token", but no "refresh_token" and no "expires_in". 

Now the access token seems to be "long lived" again, but I'm reading non-expiring tokens are getting deprecated, so I'd rather switch to the refresh logic while I'm at it...

How can I get a refresh_token ?

 

KR, 

Vicne

  • We recommend just using the official SDKs whenever possible, as they'll do most of the work for you, but you can certainly use the HTTPS endpoints directly if you'd like.

     

    You can find information on this in the authorization documentation, as well as the new OAuth Guide.

     

    Most apps currently default to long-lived access tokens, but if you want to start using short-lived access tokens, you should set the 'token_access_type' parameter on your /oauth2/authorize URL. You can find information on using that in the /oauth2/authorize documentation. Specifically, to get short-lived tokens with a refresh token, you should set it to "offline".

  • Greg-DB's avatar
    Greg-DB
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

    We recommend just using the official SDKs whenever possible, as they'll do most of the work for you, but you can certainly use the HTTPS endpoints directly if you'd like.

     

    You can find information on this in the authorization documentation, as well as the new OAuth Guide.

     

    Most apps currently default to long-lived access tokens, but if you want to start using short-lived access tokens, you should set the 'token_access_type' parameter on your /oauth2/authorize URL. You can find information on using that in the /oauth2/authorize documentation. Specifically, to get short-lived tokens with a refresh token, you should set it to "offline".

    • Vicne's avatar
      Vicne
      Explorer | Level 4

      Yes, that was it.

      Adding "token_access_type=offline" to the authorize url at the beginning of the transaction resulted in both a short-lived access token with a lifetime of 1440s (4h) and a refresh_token that I'll be able to use once the access_token is outdated.

       

      Thanks for the great support.

       

      Vicne

About Dropbox API Support & Feedback

Node avatar for Dropbox API Support & Feedback

Find help with the Dropbox API from other developers.

5,877 PostsLatest Activity: 12 months ago
325 Following

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!