When accessing my Acuity Scheduling API, first I sent a GET request using Basic username and password. It worked. I tried the same GET request using the Base64 version of my credentials, but I get a 401 error. Why?
Welcome to the Postman Community! 
Without knowing what both of those are producing, it’s hard to tell here. Have you compared both outputs using the request details in the console to see if these are creating the same thing?
I’m new to APIs, so I’m not totally sure. I used a GET request twice on the same URL, expecting to get the same result. I got a 200 with the basic auth and a 401 with the base64. Aren’t those fundamentally the same thing, just using different ciphers? Why wouldn’t both outputs be exactly the same?
There are a lot of things going on here that no one can see, as these are all in front of you.
I don’t know how those 2 different methods have been applied to your requests. I know how you would have used the Auth Helper but not how you have added the base64 value.
Without more visual information, it’s just guesswork from my side. 
That’s not doing the same thing - Those are 2 different Auth Types.
The Basic helper would do this:
The API Key helper would do this:
This is just using the base64 value of danny:dainton
To get the same as the Basic helper, you would need to do something manual and add it like this:
Or you could also achieve this in a more programmatic way using a script.
Wow, I had no idea. I thought that Basic and Base64 were just two versions of the same passcode that would lead to the same result. I had no clue they were used for different things. Thanks for explaining!
You’re welcome.
You could also use a script like this in the pre-request section to pull in your variables and add the header to the request:
const username = pm.environment.get('username');
const password = pm.environment.get('password');
const base64String = btoa(`${username}:${password}`);
// Add Basic Auth header to the request
pm.request.headers.add({
key: 'Authorization',
value: `Basic ${base64String}`
});
Hi there! Sorry for the follow-up question but I’m new to both APIs and coding in general and I’d like to look deeper into what you’ve shared. What is the topic that I should research to learn the different Auth Types and what they are used for?