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Forum Discussion

leqtruong's avatar
leqtruong
New member | Level 2
3 years ago

How to show option "access token expiration" in settings tab

I use the same account to create 2 apps but why only 1 app has the option 'access token expiration' ?
How to make every app have an 'access token expiration' option?

Thank you.

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

    Dropbox is switching to issuing short-lived access tokens (and optional refresh tokens) instead of long-lived access tokens. You can find more information on this migration here.

     

    Apps can still get long-term access by requesting "offline" access though, in which case the app receives a "refresh token" that can be used to retrieve new short-lived access tokens as needed, without further manual user intervention. You can find more information in the OAuth Guide and authorization documentation.

     

    While the change to only issue short-lived access tokens began on September 30th, we're releasing it gradually, so you may not have seen this applied to all apps yet. Once it applies to an app, it would apply regardless of the "Access token expiration" setting for that app, and that setting may no longer be available for that app.

    • leqtruong1's avatar
      leqtruong1
      Explorer | Level 4

      @Greg-DB

      Thanks a lot.

      But now our App has been released with customers using it and currently I can't change the code.
      How can I enable "access token expiration" or on your back-end can it be set to "No expration"? Of course the dropbox package we are using is paid.

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

        You can find more information on handling this migration in the blog post. (Please also make sure that the email address on the Dropbox account that owns your API app is valid and can receive email, as that's where we send advanced notice of changes like this.)

         

        In short though, if your app only requires short-term access and handles 401 errors already, no change is necessary. If your app doesn't handle 401 errors already, or requires long-term access (without user interaction), you would need to ship an update with support for refresh tokens implemented.

         

        If you need more time to complete your migration, feel free to open an API ticket here from the account that owns the API app in question and we may be able to help.

    • zakariaenabi's avatar
      zakariaenabi
      Explorer | Level 4

      I have the same problem. My program is running productively and needs this long-term valid access token. I wanted to see if I could generate a new token and found that this option was no longer available.
      So far I've simply bound the token as a variable in my program to access data in Dropbox. which files exactly do I need in my program now?
      I really need this option.
      Thank you.

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

        zakariaenabi I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say "which files exactly do I need in my program now?". For information on how to handle the authorization flow, please refer to the resources in my earlier messages in this thread. And if you're using one of the official Dropbox SDKs, be sure to refer to the documentation/examples for that.

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