Periodic http 401 errors from Twitter

[tehspaceg]

I am receiving HTTP 401 errors while running through a script I created that reads the Twitter stream and retweets things that match the parameters I have set. It occasionally fails during the retweet section with:

tweepy.error.TweepError: Twitter error response: status code = 401

I confirmed that the time is valid on the system and within the ~15 minute wiggle room. The code works the majority of the time, so I am not sure why it would throw the 401 status. Maybe a side question, but is there a more verbose error I can print? I know Twitter will return more information on why it threw 401 (such as unauthorized)

I snipped out some non-interesting parts, but here is the main part of the code:

def doRetweet(id_string):
    # authenticate against the Twitter API
    api = tweepy.API(auth)
    # actually do the retweet
    api.retweet(id_string)
    print('I did the retweet')
    print()
    return
class StdOutListener(tweepy.StreamListener):
    def on_data(self, data):

        # Twitter returns data in JSON format - we need to decode it first
        decoded = json.loads(data)

        # grab some data we use later
        tweet_id = decoded['id_str']

        doRetweet(tweet_id)

        return True

    def on_error(self, status):
        print('The below status code was returned from Twitter')
        print(status)
        if status_code == 420:
            #returning False in on_data disconnects the stream
            return False

    def on_exception(self, exception):
        raise exception
        return False

try:
    if __name__ == '__main__':
        l = StdOutListener()
        auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(consumer_key, consumer_secret)
        auth.set_access_token(access_token, access_token_secret)

        # Authenticate with the streaming API and filter what we initially receive
        # spaces are AND operators, while a comma indicates OR. More info here: https://dev.twitter.com/streaming/overview/request-parameters
        stream = tweepy.Stream(auth, l)
        stream.filter(track=['#blah'], languages=['en'])
except KeyboardInterrupt:
    sys.exit()

[tehspaceg]

Just food for thought, could it be because I am being login rate limited when doing the retweet? I am doing the login stuff in the retweet function, so perhaps I am being rate limited if I get a few retweets in a short window?

Could I just authenticate once in the "f name == 'main':" section of my code?

[tehspaceg]

Moving the api = tweepy.API(auth) section down to the main section did not resolve the 401 errors. Trying out a few things. Any input would be helpful, I am mostly just throwing darts.

[yprez]

Tweepy exceptions have a response attribute that holds the original response from twitter. Maybe it'll help.
If you do something like:

try:
    retweet()
except Exception as e:
    if e.response:
        print(e.response.content)
    raise

Twitter usually tells you if you're being rate limited.

I also noticed that you're not setting the access token in doRetweet() (auth.set_access_token()), maybe that's the reason?

[tehspaceg]

I'll put the exception bit into my code to see if it gives more info instead of just the 401. I added some retry bits into the auth, so if it error out again I will add the exception print.

I was under the impression that I only needed one access token and it didn't time out, I have the auth.set_access_token() running before we hop into the streaming section.

[tehspaceg]

No luck with the try/except section. "on_exception" in streaming.py is catching the exception before I can print out the response. At a minimum I am getting the 401 status code.