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Authentication Failed

Reference · Errors

authentication_failed401

Authentication · Sign-in and internal endpoints

Sign-in failed: the email and password, Google token or internal secret did not check out. API keys get api_key_* codes.

What this means​

A sign-in or internal request was refused with HTTP 401 because its credentials could not be verified. API key calls never get this code; a missing, unknown or revoked key gets a specific api_key_* code instead.

When you'll see this​

  • Dashboard sign-in (POST /v1/auth/login) with an email and password that do not match an account. The message does not say which of the two was wrong.
  • Continue with Google (POST /v1/auth/google) with a Google token that did not verify.
  • An operator-only route under /v1/internal/* called without the right internal secret.
  • A 401 raised without a more specific code.
Learn more about how this works

For an API key, saying exactly what is wrong (missing, unknown, revoked) helps you fix it and reveals nothing useful. For a password sign-in, the answer is the same whether the email exists or not, so the error cannot be used to find out who has an account. Failed sign-ins also count towards login_attempts_exceeded.

Example response​

{
  "success": false,
  "error": "authentication_failed",
  "message": "We couldn't authenticate your request. Verify your credentials and try again.",
  "details": [],
  "retry_after": null,
  "doc_url": "https://docs.asterwise.com/reference/errors/authentication_failed/",
  "request_id": "req_01HXYZABCDEFGH",
  "timestamp": "2026-05-25T12:34:56Z"
}
NEW TO APIS?
Quick fix
  1. Check the email and password and try again, or reset the password from the sign-in page.
  2. If the account was created with Google, use Continue with Google.
  3. If it keeps failing, email [email protected] with the request_id.
PRODUCTION ENGINEER
Recovery pattern

Integrations that call the API with a key never receive this error. A dashboard client should show the message as given and let the person try again; do not retry automatically, because repeated failures lock sign-in for a while.

Production handler​

No code example provided.

Avoid this error by​

  • Use a password manager so the stored password matches the account.
  • Sign in with the same method (password or Google) the account was created with.